
CopyrigM'N^ 



CQEOUGHT OEPOSm 



THE 



WAGES QUESTIOIi 



A TREATISE OX 



WAGES AND THE WAGES GLASS 



FRAXCIS ArWALlCER, M.A., Pir.D. 

Professor of Political Kconomy and Ilisluvr^ Slie^ield 

SvieiHific Hchool of I'ule tolU-cje. 

Lale di'ef of t.h,- r. ^. Vurenu nf siaU.fn'-; SuneriiUendtnt 

oj Uie Miilh Census: Ant/i.-rr of l.ln' .-tntts'icdt 

Atlas of thii Cniltd t'taicx. 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COIMPANY 

187G 




I^a 



3 



o\ 



W'^ 



CorVRIGHT, 1876, BY 

HENRY HOLT. 



John F. Trow & Son, 

printers. 
203--'! 3 /-^ns/ \Q.th Street. 

NRW YORK. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I.-PRODLTCTIOJ^ AND POPULATION. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER I. 

Wages a Question in the Distribution of Wealth 3 

CHAPTER 11. 
Nominal and Real Wages 12 

CHAPTER HI. 
Nominal and Real Cost op Labor 40 

CHAPTER IV. 
Thk Degradation op Labor 81 

CHAPTER r. 
The Law op Diminishing Returns 89 



CHAPTER VI 
Malthusianism in Wages — The Law op Population 101 

CHAPTER VIL 
Necessary Wages 109 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Wages op the Laborer are paid out op the Product 
op his Industry 128 

CHAPTER IX. 

There is no Wage-fund irrespective op the Number and 
Industrial Quality of Laborers 138 



iv CONTENTS. 

PAllT II.— DISTRIBUTION. 

Cn AFTER X. 

The Pkoblem of Distribution — Competition — The Diffu- 
sion Theoky — The Economical Haumonies lo5 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Mobility of Labor 174 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Wages Class 20(> 

CHAPTER XIII 

The Capitalist Class — Uetup.ns of Cvpital — R:3nt and In- 
terest 224 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Employing Class— The Entrepreneur Function — '1'iie 
Profits of Business 24;j 

CHAPTER XV. 
Co-operation: (JcTTiNa kid of the Employing Class SG2 

CHAPTER XVJ. 
The True Waoes Question 280 

CHAPTER XV IL 
What may place the Wages Class at a Disadvantage.... :!0:' 

CHAPTER XVIIL 

What ^L\Y help the Wages Class in its CoMi'KrrTiox fok 
THE Product of Industky :J4.") 

CHAPTER XIX. 

May any Advantage be AnQUiUED r.v the Wages Class 
through Stu^kks or T!iade5-Unions ? ;;8"') 

Concluding Remarks 10!) 



PART I. 



PRODUCTION AND POPULATION, 



THE "WAGES QUESTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

WAGES A QUESTION IN THE DISTEIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

All the questions of Political Economy may, both con- 
veniently and appropriately, be grouped under four titles, 
namely, the Production, the Distribution, the Exchange, 
and the Consumption of Wealth. All wealth has, of course, 
to be produced, in the first place ; and, moreover, it is pro- 
duced to be consumed, and for this end alone. Production 
and Consumption, therefore, are concerned with the entire 
smn of wealth. 

All wealth, however, is not exchanged' ; nor is all 

^ Not only is not, but could not be. I say this to meet the sugges- 
tion that wealth, though actually not exchanged, is yet always sub- 
ject to exchange in the sense that, if that particular form of wealth 
were to rise, or some possible substitute for it in use were to fall 
markedly in price, exchange would then take place, so that such 
wealth should still be regarded as within the domain of exchange. 
But the state of facts assumed is not real. No matter how much rice 
might advance, or other food decline in price, no human power could 
take all the crop out of India and bring back a food-substitute to the 
people, even were it Liebig's extract. The whole transportation system 
of India, reinforced by the revenues of the British Government, broke 
d&WTa under the effort, in 1873-4, to distribute to the people of certain 
districts of India an amount of rice equivalent to but a small portion 
of their usual crop. The railroads and water-courses of the United 
States could not take all the crops from the farms where they were 
raised. 



4 TEE WAGES QUESTION. 

wealtli clistril)uted. Exchange and Distribution, therefore, 
have not to deal with the entire sum of wealth. Nor is 
that part of wealth which is excluded from Exchange 
identical with that which is excluded from Distribution. 
Vast amounts of wealth are exchanged which are not 
distributed ; vast amounts are distributed which are not 
exchanged. 

The term Production of "Wealth does not need, for our 
present purposes, to be defined. 

Consumption, in the economical sense, is the use of 
wealth. The actual destruction of wealth thereby may be 
total or partial, rapid or slow, according to the nature of 
the material and the object to which it is directed. The 
Consumption begins Avhen the use begins. 

" That almost all that is produced is destroyed, is true ; 
but we can not admit that it is produced for the purpose of 
being destroyed. It is produced for the pmpose of being 
made use of. Its destruction is an incident to its use ; not 
only not intended, but, as far as possible, avoided.'" 

Wealth is exchanged, in the meaning of the political 
economist, when the jiroducer and the consumer of it are 
different persons ; and this, whether different persons have 
united in the production of it or not. 

On the other hand, wealth must be distributed when dif- 
ferent persons (having separate legal interests) unite in 
j)roduction ; and this, whether the product is to be ex- 
changed or not. 

In illustration of the latter case, let us suppose that a 
dozen persons unite in a fishing venture, on equal or unequal 
shares. Upon their return the product is distributed — that 
is, divided into shares — among them. It may be that each 
of the producers will desire all the fish thus falling to his 
share for his own immediate consumption, or to be salted 
down for winter use : then none of the product will be 
exchanged, though all of it has been subject to distribution. 

J N. W. Senior, Pol. Econ., p. 54. 



DISTRIBUTION m. EXCHANGE. 5 

Or, again, some of the fishermen may desire to sell the 
whole, others portions only, of their fish, in order to pur- 
chase articles more adapted to their necessities : then we 
should have a product distributed wholly and exchanged 
in part. 

In illustration of the former case, let us take a small far- 
mer, in the American sense of that term,' a peasant pro- 
prietor in the phrase of Europe, cultivating his land by his 
own labor and that of his minor children, and perhaps of 
his wife as well. The product here is not distributed, 
because it is all his,^ the children and, for that matter, 
the wife, having no separate interests legally, and the 
avails of their labor going entire to the father and husband. 
The product, therefore, not being divisible into shares rep- 
resenting the claims of different producers, Distriljution is 
not concerned at all with it ; yet a part of it, or the whole, 
may be exchanged. If the farm were situated in one of our 
J^orth-eastern States, and the product were chiefly pork, 
corn, potatoes, and garden vegetables, the greater part 
would presumably go to the support of the family, and but 
little would be exchanged for other articles. If, on the 



^ " When we speak of an American farmer, we generally mean one 
who is the absolute owner of the land and every thing on it." — T. 
Sedgwick, Pol. Econ., p. 54. 

"^ It may be said that the father and hnsband'is bound, both morally 
and legally, to support his wife and children out of the product ; 
and that the subsistence thus derived by them constitutes, in efEect, 
their wages. To this it will be sufficient to answer, first, that the 
amount and character of that subsistence are not determined by con- 
tract between the parties, as in the case of what may properly be 
called wages, but, within the limits of the mere support of life, are 
wholly at the will and discretion of the head of the family, having no 
relation to what other persons, rendering the same character and 
amount of service, may be receiving next door ; and, second, which 
settles the question, that the head of the family is equally bound to 
supply subsistence whether the wife and children labor or not. In the 
case of children too young to labor, or of an invalid wife, the obliga- 
tion of the head of the family, in respect to subsistence, is precisely 
the same. 



6 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

other hand, it were situated in one of the Southern sea- 
board States, and the product were cotton, the whole of it, 
though not distributed, would be exchanged, being sold to 
purchase breadstuft's, clothing, AVest-India goods, etc. 

Both the Exchange and the Distribution of Wealth may- 
be, according to subject and circumstance, either simj)le 
and obvious, or effected through most complicated and 
roundabout processes. Thus, Exchange may take place in 
the form of dh-ect barter between two neighbors, each 
ffivino; some of what he has for some of what he wants ; 
or it may involve the services of railroad, steamship, and 
ocean telegraph, with the mediation of importers, jobbers, 
wholesalers, and retailers. 

In like manner. Distribution may take the form of a sim- 
ple division of a product into two or three equal shares ; or 
it may involve the partition of the annual avails of a factory 
among live hundred persons having claims upon the pro- 
duct, in shares varying from that of the nine-year-old 
" half-timer," working under the Factory acts, to that of 
the employer or the owner of the mill. 



The distinction which I have sought here to illustrate 
between the Exchange and the Distribution of Wealth is 
not of importance in the general theory of political econ- 
omy only, but it is of immediate application to the pro- 
blem of Wages. I shall seek to sliow^ that the fact that 
a large portion of the wealth produced is not distributed, 
while yet it is exchanged, may have a powerful influence on 
the condition of those classes who produce distributed 
wealth. In my opinion, one can no more explain all the 
phenomena of distribution without reference to the fact 
of a vast undistributed product, than one could explain the 
movement of the Gulf Stream without reference to the 
colder waters through which and over which it flows. 

' P. 330. 



WAGES A QUESTION OF DISTRIBUTION. 7 

These brief remarks upon the scope of the four depart- 
ments of Political Economy will be sufficiently connected 
with the special topic of this work by the remark that the 
question of Wages is a question in the Distribution of 
Wealth. 

Kow it is clear that in treating of the Production of 
Wealth we need to distinguish industrial /''imci^^wis/ and 
this the systematic writers have done with great success, 
and we have the laws of production developed early in the 
history of economical investigation with great complete- 
ness, little being left to be added by later writers. 

But is it not equally clear that in treating of the Distri- 
bution of Wealth, we need to distinguish industrial classes, 
recognizing industrial functions only as they serve to 
characterize such classes ? This the systematic winters in 
economics have ^generally failed to do ; and I venture to 
think there is in this the explanation of the little progress 
made towards the settlement of the important questions in 
this department of the science. 

Thus the political economist, having shown, by careful 
analysis and apt illustration, the parts taken in production 
by labor and by capital, carries the same classification for- 
ward into Distribution, and speaks of the shares of the pro- 
duct received by labor and by capital respectively. ISTow 
it does not follow at all, as a matter of course, that because 
labor and capital perform parts which can be clearly dis- 
tinguished in production, they will receive separate shares 
in the distribution of the product. That will depend on 
whether these functions are or are not united in the same 
persons. In the distribution of wealth, shares go to per- 
sons, who may be grouped in larger or smaller classes, hav- 
ing less or more in common. So far as the function per- 
formed in production may serve to characterize the 
industrial class, so far the function may be recognized in 
treating the questions of Distribution, but only so far. 
Beyond this it becomes as idle to refer in distribution to 
functions performed in production as it would be to seek 



8 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

to identify the members of the body engaged in a certain 
kind of hibor, and undertake to show the parts of the pro- 
duce which go severally to the hand, the eye, and the foot. 
It is true that we find men laboring, generally at reduced 
wages, who have lost one or both hands, one or l)oth eyes, 
one or both feet ; and the economist may, by judicious in- 
quiry, satisfy himself how much these unfortunate persons 
lose in wages by their several infirmities. But this would 
not be held to justify the extension of such an analysis or 
dissection to the vastly greater number of sound laborers, 
and the erection of a system of distribution based on the 
respective contributions of the several parts of the undivi- 
ded body to the work of production. 

Kow, as matter of fact, although labor is a function in 
production which is always separable in idea from the work 
of capital, the instances where capital is furnished by one 
person and labor performed wholly by a different person 
are, if we look over the world, fewer ^ by far than those in 
which capital is furnished more or less by those who per- 
form the labor, and in which labor is performed more or 
less by those who furnish the capital. In other words, it 
is not the rule, but the exception, that one or the other in- 
dustrial function shall characterize the industrial person or 
class, just as, notwithstanding all the effects of malicious 
and accidental injury, the number of those who preserve 
all their organs and members exceeds the number of the 
maimed, the halt, and the blind. 

Yet the great body of systematic writers in political 
economy have carried the classification which resulted 
from their analysis of the processes of production over, 
without change, into the discussion of the questions of 
distribution ; and having found labor and capital the two 
agents in production, have proceeded to speak of the remune- 
ration of labor and the remuneration of capital, as if labor 

1 Chapter XII. 



CLASSIFICATION OF LABORERS. 9 

and capital did in fact receive shares always distinct in 
the distribution of wealth. 

ISTow it is easy to show that the term Labor, according to 
this use of it, includes the jDart in industry of five classes 
of persons clearly separable in economical idea, and gene- 
rally to be distinguished clearly in life, namely : 1st, the 
class who work for themselves, by themselves, either on 
their own land (the " peasant proprietor" of Europe, and 
the American " farmer") or in mechanical ti'ades. This 
class may consmne their own products entire, ^ or exchange 
them in a greater or less degree, but in either case there is 
no distribution, 2d, the tenant occupier of land, like the 
cottar of Ireland or the ryot of India, who receives the 
whole produce, subject only to the deduction of rent for 
the natural powers of the soil. 3d, the class of persons 
working for hire {e. g., domestic servants, soldiers, clergy- 
men) who are paid out of the revenue of their employers, 
and are not employed with any reference to the profits of 
production. 4th, the class of persons working for hire, 
whether in agriculture, in trade, or in mechanical pursuits, 
who are paid out of the product of their industry, and are 
employed with reference to the profits of production. 



^ Througliout the present discussion I shall waive all qiiestion of 
the amount derived by the government from taxation. Whether 
taxes be, as Professor Senior claims (Pol. Econ., p. 182-5), " a form of 
expenditure," and hence only cognizable in the department of Con- 
sumption, it is not needful to decide here. Suffice it to say that 
even though government were to be regarded as, in a certain sense, a 
partner in the production of wealth, and a sharer in its distribution, 
yet, inasmuch as government always enters by force and carries 
away its part, determining for itself alike how much it will take and - 
to what use it will apply what it takes, political economy can know 
nothing of it. As the laws are silent amid arms, economical science 
bows before the tax-gatherer. Whether government shall take much 
or little for its own purposes out of the wealth that has been pro- 
duced is the business, not of the economist, but of the statesman. 
The methods and subjects of taxation do come within the field of politi- 
cal economy, but it is only because they affect the production of future 
wealth, its distribution, its exchange. 



10 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

5th, the employers themselves, in so far as they personally 
conduct and control business oiDerations, their remuneration 
being styled the " wages of supervision and management." 

Now to the remuneration of each of these five classes the 
economists generally, as I have said, apply the temi "Wages, 
although only the third and fourth classes do in fact receive 
a remuneration for their services distinct from that which 
they receive for the use of their capital ; being therefore 
the only classes which receive "wages" in the ordinary 
meaning of that word ; and although, in the second j^lace, 
classes 4 and 5 thus grouped have interests as strongly 
opposed as human interests can well become. 

The exjDlanation of such a classification would fairly 
seem to be that which has been indicated, namely, that 
economists have assumed as of course that the industrial 
functions which they distinguish in the production of 
wealth will necessarily characterize the industrial classes 
interested in the distribution of wealth. Otherwise it 
would scarcely be possible that a classification should 
be seriously proposed, for the solution of the problems of 
distribution, which groups together employer and em- 
ployed ; the peasant proprietor, the tenant occupier, and 
tlje hired agricultural hand ; the navvy and the railroad 
king ; the day-laborer and the domestic servant with a 
Stewart, an Astor, and a Rothschild. 

It is tnie that labor, in a certain sense of that word, is 
common to these and all other classes in j^roduction ; and 
this fact of itself ought to be enough to show that it is not 
labor which should be taken to distinguish classes in dis- 
tribution. It is not what these classes have in common, 
but those things by which they diifer from each other, 
which should be made the means of characterizing them 
as claimants to the product of industry. 



It might fairly be expected that after insisting thus 
peremptorily that the question of Wages is a question in the 



DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 11 

Distribution of Wealth, and that, in distribution, not in- 
dustrial functions, but industrial classes, should be consider- 
ed, one would in a treatise on Wages at once proceed to 
state the problem of distribution, and to define the wages 
class as a party thereto. But, on the contrary, I shall be 
obliged to take up and explain with much particularity 
certain principles of Production and Population which 
can not safely be assumed for om" present purposes, and 
also to deal at some length with a current theory respect- 
ing the remuneration of labor, which squarely blocks the 
way to a philosophy of Wages. 



CHAPTEE 11. 

NOMINAL AND REAL WAGES. 

A DISTINCTION which needs to be apprehended with great 
clearness and held strongly in the mind, throughout all 
discussion of Wages, is that between I^ominal and Real 
Wages. 

Eeal Wages are the remuneration of the hired laborer as 
reduced to the necessaries, comforts, or luxuries of life. 
These are what the laborer works for ; these are truly his 
wages. The money he receives under his contract with 
his employer is only a means to that end ; sometimes, as it 
proves, a most delusive means. If, as is the case with the 
great majority of his class, he spends every week or every 
month his entire earnings, he can see for himself, no 
matter how little given to reflection, that his wages are not 
his money, but what his money brings. If, again, he is 
frugal and forehanded enough to save a portion of his 
wages, and hoard it up or put it out at interest, it is still 
true, though not perhaps so evident, that tliis. portion of 
his wages also means, in some near or distant future, " food, 
clothing, lodging, and firing" to himself or to his family. 
The habitual miser, the person who loves money for its 
own sake, is one of the most exceptional of human beings, 
the victim, doubtless, of a distinct form of disease as truly 
as the subject of alcoholism. 

But this reduction of Nominal to Real Wages is not an 
easy matter. " No one," says Mr. G. R. Porter in his Pro- 
gress of the Nation, " unless he shall have made the at- 



NOMINAL AND REAL WAGES. 13 

tempt to obtain information of this kind, can be aware 
of the difficnlties op23osed to his sneeess." 

Ileal may differ from ^Nominal Wages by reason of : 

1st. Variations in the purchase-power of money. 

2d. Varieties in the form of payment. 

3d. Opportunities for extra earnings. 

4th. The greater or less regularity of employment. 

5th. The longer or shorter duration of the laboring 
power. 

I shall consider these causes ^ in the order in which 
they are here given. 

I. The purchase-power of money may vary by reason 
of changes in the supply of, or in the demand for, money. 
First, of changes in the supply of money. 

{a) Changes of Coinage. — If a given amount of 
gold or silver be rendered into a greater number of 
coins than formeily, it is evident that each coin will 
purchase fewer commodities. ISTow when it is stated 
that the English " pound " of to-day contains less 
than one third the standard silver it contained in 1300 
A.D. — 12 oz. of English silver coin metal being now 
rendered into ^^ shillings, whereas a shilling^ is nomi- 
nally the twentieth part of a " pound " — and that the 
French livre of 1Y89 contained less than one sixty-sixth 
part of the silver implied in its name, the importance of 

^ To the considerations enumerated must be added, as Mr. Ward 
has shown, still another, in the case of laborers working hy the piece. 
" When piece-work is done, you have to consider not only the price 
per piece paid, but also the conditions, as of machinery, etc. Thus the 
Hyde spinners in 1824 struck because they were getting less per piece 
than others, though all the time they were, by reason of improved 
machinery, actually earning more per day." — Workmen and Wages, 
p. 23. 

^ The shilling in America suffered a still harder fate — twenty " York 
shillings" having the value of but $3.50, and 20 New-England shil- 
lings the value of $3.33. In Pennsylvania the " dollar " was, at differ- 
ent dates, worth 4s. Qd. ; 5s. ; 5s M. : 6s. ; 6s. M. ; 7s. ; 7s. 6d.—C6l. 
well's Ways and Means of Payment, p. 99. 



14 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

this discrimination in historical comparisons of wages be- 
comes manifest. 

Even in comparison of contemporary wages, care has often 
to be taken lest coins of the same name but of differing 
value be confounded. Tims, in tlie United States, the 
York shilling (eiglit to a dollar) and the New-England 
shilling (six to a dollar) were until recently liable to be 
taken for each other in calculation of prices. In the same 
way the English penny differs from tlie penny in use in the 
island of Jersey, of which it takes thirteen to make a shil- 
ling. 

{b) Changes in the amount of the precious metals in 
circulation. — The history of the production of gold and 
silver is a history of often intermitted and always highly 
spasmodic activity. Tims in the year 800 there is sup- 
posed to have been on hand gold and silver to the value, as 
expressed in American gold coin, of $1,790,000,000. 
Between that date and 1-492, the date of the discovery of 
America, with its vast reserves of mined and resources of 
unmined treasure, the estimated product was $345,000,000. 
Between l'J:92 and 1803 the product is given as $5,820,- 
700,000 ; between 1803 and 1848, as $2,484,000,000 ; be- 
tween 1848 and 1868, as $3,571,000,000, The effect upon 
prices wrought by such wliolesale changes in the volume of 
the precious metals has long been discussed, and with 
great fulness, by economical writers, as influencing the 
wages of labor, producing a wide divergence between real 
and nominal wages in comparison of different periods ; 
but we owe to Prof. Cairnes^ the demonstration that tliis 
cause is also influential in creating disturbances in contem- 
porary wages, the effect upon prices being produced veiy 
irregularly as between countries, and as between different 
classes of commodities in the same country. 

((') Fluctuations in the jpaper suhstitutes for coin. — A 
paper cm-rency pui-porting to be convertible into coin, but in 

' Essays on tlie Gold Question, I808-GO. 



PURCHASE POWER OF MONEY. 15 

fact issued, in reliance on the doctrine of chances, in con- 
siderable excess of the amount of gold and silver held for 
its redemption, will undergo far more sudden and violent 
changes than would be possible Avith a gold and silver cur- 
rency, or a paper currency based, dollar for dollar, upon 
the precious metals. The reason is that, as the excess 
of circulation over the specie basis consists of credit, and 
not of value, it is governed, both in expansion and in con- 
traction, by the condition of credit, and not by the laws of 
value, as a value currency would be. It costs twice as 
much labor to raise. two thousand ounces of gold from the 
mine as to raise one thousand ounces. It costs no more to 
engrave, print, and sign a thousand two-dollar than a thou- 
sand one-dollar bills. Since, then, a paper circulation may 
be increased without labor, all such currencies have shown 
a 'Strong tendency to increase under every speculative im- 
pulse in trade, the currency allowing prices to advance, and 
the advance of prices, in turn, quickening the speculative 
impulse, and thus creating new demands for additional cur- 
rency. When, however, prices have been carried to their 
height, and the market begins to feel the effects of highly- 
stimulated foreign importations, while for the same reason 
the specie basis of an already dangerously inflated circula- 
tion begins to be drawn upon to pay for the goods thus 
brought in, the contraction of the currency will be even 
more sudden and extreme than was the expansion. ISTot a 
gold dollar can be taken away unless something is given 
for it ; a bank-bill has cost nothing : it will cost nothing to 
replace it. It may therefore be destroyed without loss to 
the bank. 

But while a wide divergence between Nominal and 
Heal "Wages may be created by the alternate expan- 
sions and contractions of a currency issued on the doctrine 
of chances in excess of its specie basis, the disturbances 
hereby introduced into wages are slight compared with 
those caused by th-e issue of inconvertible government pa- 
per. Thus we find Washington writing, during the Revo- 



16 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

lution, that it took a wagon-load of money to buy a wagon- 
load of provisions. The money of which he thus wrote 
was the famous " Continental currency." The deprecia- 
tion of this currency had been rapid. March 1st, 1778, 
$1 in coin would purchase $1.75 in paper; Sept. 1st, 

1778, Si; March 1st, 1779, $10; Sept. 1st, 1779, $18 ; 
March 18th, 1780, $40 ; Dec. 1st, 1780, $100 ; May 1st, 
1781, $200-500. 

The printing-press had nearly fulfilled the prediction of 
John Adams, in making " money as plenty, and of course 
as cheap, as oak-leaves." ^ Mr. Jefferson says'^ that the 
paper continued to circulate in the Southern States till it 
had fallen to $1000 for $1. We are familiar with the 
prices at which the necessaries of life were purchased in 
currency thus depreciated : " Bohea tea, forty-five dollars ; 
salt — wliich used to be sold for a shilling a bushel — forty 
dollars a bushel, and, in some of the States, two hundred 
dollars at times ; linens, forty dollars a yard ; ironmongery 
of all sorts, one hmidred and twenty for one."^ 

I have before me the public records of the second pre- 
cinct of the to^waiship of Brookfield, Massachusetts, for this 
period. On the 23d May, 1776, a " gospel minister " was 
called, the terms of settlement being as follows : " Yoted 
and granted the sum of £70 the two first years each as sa- 
lary, and the third year to rise to £80 per annum during his 
ministry." The succeeding votes show the effects of the 
currency inflation : Bee. 3d, 1778, " Yoted and granted the 
sum of £220 to the Rev. Mr. Appleton, to be assessed on 
the polls and estates within this precinct, in addition to 
the former grant of £80 for the present year." Oct. 21sf, 

1779, " Voted and granted the sum of £720 to the Rev. 
Mr. Appleton, in addition to his stated salary of £80." 
April Zd, 1780, " Voted that the £220 granted Dec. 3d, 
1778, shall go for the preceding year. Voted that the £720 
granted Oct. 21st, 1779, be so far reconsidered as that the 

1 Works, ix. 463. "" Works, ix. 249. ^ Works of J. Adams, vii. 199. 



PUBCHASE-POWEB OF MONEY. 17 

same shall be for the preceding instead of the ensuing year. 
Then voted and granted the sum of £2420 in addition to 
his stated salary, to be assessed on the polls and estates 
within this precinct, for the support of the E,ev. Mr. Ap- 
pleton from October, 1779, to October, 1780." 

Second. The purchase-power of money may vary by 
reason of changes in the demand for money. The sup- 
ply of money is the amount which is offered for all other 
commodities ; the demand for money is the amount of all 
other commodities offered for it. Eggs in the Highlands 
were cheap in Dr. Johnson's day, " not because eggs were 
plenty, but because pence were few." Whether it be the 
plentif ulness < f eggs or the fewness of pence which deter- 
mines the price, the historian of wages is bound to ascer- 
tain. 

It is manifest that the annual production of commodities 
will increase with the efficiency of labor and capital, and 
that this increase is from age to age very great ; also, that 
the longer this annual production is sustained the greater 
will be the accumulation of commodities, the results of 
past production. 



Two practical remarks remain to be made, in the nature 
of warning, to those who undertake the difficult task of 
instituting such comparisons of wages as are referred to 
above. 

The first relates to tlie effect of local prices. The com- 
modities into which the laborer desires to render his money 
wages, bear prices differing greatly in localities not far ro- 
raoved from each other. Tlie mere passage from city to coun- 
try often produces a marked distinction in the prices of th3 
first necessaries of life ; while, where more considerable 
distances intervene, the differences in local prices are of tea 
sufficient to effect a substantial equality between nominal 
wages widely divergent, or to greatly exaggerate apparent 
differences. Thus a mechanic living in some portions of 



J 



18 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

Yemiont, away from a railroad, can buy food for liis fam- 
ily at prices which would somid like a dream to a town 
mechanic. Indeed some of the most expensive luxuries of 
the city, to which professional men scarce asj^ire, sweet 
cream, fresh fruits, and new-laid eggs, are within easy 
reach of his means. The more substantial articles of diet, 
meats, grains, and vegetables, cost one half, or one third 
perhaps, what they do in a city market. Would he build 
a house 'i The main material costs little ; the land less. 
Does he lease a cottage ? His rent is not one fourtli what 
his city cousin pays for perhaps squalid and unwholesome 
(juarters. 

But, it may be asked, is not the country mechanic at a 
disadvantage in respect to all the commodities, whether 
manufactured articles or the products of agriculture, which 
are brought from abroad ; and does not this disadvantage 
go far to counterbalance the advantages enumerated ? It 
can not be questioned that a loss is suffered on this ac- 
count ; but it is much less than the gaiu by reason of two 
causes : first, the greater share of his expenditures are for 
articles produced near by ; second, those which are brought 
from al)road are, almost without exception, markedly in- 
fci'ior in bulk to those which are supplied by the domestic 
market, and hence their price is less enhanced by transporta- 
tion, lie saves upon his meats and grains and vegetables, 
his fuel, and the timber for his house, the freight of those 
articles to a market ; he pays the freight from market upon 
groceries and spices; upon clothes and shoes; upon nails 
and putty and glass. 

My second warning relates to the liability of error in 
comparison of wages due to the great diversity which ex- 
ists in the articles consumed by the wages class in dif- 
ferent places and at difEerent times. Even in the lowest 
condition of life the laborer's expenditure is upon several 
articles which are necessary to his sul)sistence, while in 
countries where nature is more liberal or art has greatly 
diversified human industry, the laborer indulges in a con- 



PURCHASE-POWER OF MONEY. 19 

siderable variety of expenditures. ISTow, not only is it 
true that some of these articles may rise in price while 
others remain stationary, or even decline — or if all rise, yet 
each rises in a degree peculiar to itself, and so an average 
becomes difficult to reach, particularly in the absence of 
ample and authentic statistics of retail trade, scarcely any- 
where attainable — but those articles which make up the sub- 
sistence of workingmen are consumed by them in very vari- 
ous proportions, rendering it necessary, in estimating the 
comparative wages of two periods, to have regard not only to 
the advance or decline in price of each such article, but also 
to the amount thereof entering into consumption, inasmuch 
as a large advance upon some commodity which the la- 
borer uses but rarely and in very limited amounts may 
affect his well-being far less than a moderate rise in 
another commodity of prime necessity. 

This it is which makes it so difficult to compare wages at 
different periods in the United States. The habits of the 
people vary and have varied so greatly in respect to dress 
and diet, not to speak of other things, as to make it almost 
impossible to secure a statement which will be accepted by 
all candid parties to a controversy as to the quantities 
of each princi]3al article of consumption, which shall 
represent the expenditure of the average workman's fam- 
ily ; and unless a statement of quantities can be accepted 
as approximately correct, it can afford only a vague idea 
to secure even a precise statement of the prices of the sev- 
eral articles. 

II. ISTominal and Real Wages may differ, secondly, by 
reason of varieties in the form of payment. 

Wages are, to a very large extent, though reckoned in 
money, not paid in money.^ In agriculture, the world 

^ Even when wages are paid in money, there are two methods by 
which their real value to the laborer may be reduced in addition to all 
the causes mentioned under the preceding head. ■ These are, first, the 
practice of " long-pays," by which the workman is held a long time 
out of liis wages, and obliged to purchase goods meanwhile on credit. 



20 TEE WAGES QUESTION. 

over, full payment in money is higlily exceptional where 
it is not wliolly unknown. In England the money wages 
in general far exceed the estimated value of all the other 
forms of payment, and rarely constitute less than one half 
the nominal wages. In Scotland, except in the neiglihor- 
hood of large towns, payment in kind is very general, 
while " in some parts of the highlands little money passes 
at all between employer and employed," ^ In Germany" 
the report of the recent commission of the Agricultural 
Congress proves the custom of payments in kind to prevail 
in every province from East Prussia to Alsace. In France' 
this custom prevails to a greater or less extent in nearly all 
depai-lments. h\ the United States board to the unmar- 
ried la".)orer is perhaps the rule ; while in the South, at 
least, the ixayment in kind generally includes the subsist- 
ence of the hiborer and his family, and, to a considerable 
extent, other necessaries of life. 



on ruinous terms. Tliis is sometimes necessary in new countries ; but 
in old countries it is often resorted to needlessly, and forms one of the 
standing grievances of the laboring class. The second is the practice 
of " truck," by which the workman, though perhaps for form's sake 
paid in money, is compelled, under fear of discharge, to purchase 
goods at the employer's store. The effects of the latter practice on the 
welfare of the laboring classes will be discussed fully at a later stage 
(pp. 324-43). 

^ Fourth Report, Commission on the Employment of Women and 
Children in Agriculture, p. 110. " Part payment in food still prevails 
extensively in Wales." — Frederick Purdy, tStatistical Journal, xxiv. 
i529. 

"^ Die Lage der liindlichen Arbeiter. 

" The marrijd farm-servants," says INIr. Petre in his Report of 1870 
on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of Prussia (p. .50), " are called 
' Deputaten,' or persons receiving an allowance in kind, to distinguish 
them from other farm-servants who all take their meals together at 
the farm. The ' Deputaten ' receive in addition to their wages a cer- 
tain allowance of corn, potatoes, etc. TJiis primitive practice is, however, 
gradually gicing iray to the system of paying full wages in. moneyP 

^ " In the departments Bouches du Rhone, Gard, and Gironde it ia 
not customary to pay in kind. In some, this description of payment 
does not amount to more than 10 francs (a year). In some, it sur- 
passes in value the amount of money payment." — Lord Brabazon's Report 
on t]u> Condition of the Industrial Classes of France, 1873, p. 42. 



PAYMENT OF WAGES IN KIND. 21 

In tlie various branches of mechanical labor monej pay- 
ment is more usual, though Mr. Seymour Tremenlieere, in 
his visits to the United States prior to 1850, found the 
practice of paying wages partly in commodities quite gen- 
eral ;^ and in England money payments have only been 
secured by vigorous legislation and great vigilance in ad- 
ministration. Mr. Herries reports^ that in the sulphur- 
mining districts of Italy " stores exist, under the direction 
of the administration, where the persons employed are j)ra- 
vided with oil, wine, and bread, and other necessaries, under 
the ' tally ' or ' truck ' system." 

Payment of the wages of mechanical labor otherwise than 
in the coin of the realm is forbidden in Germany by the In- 
dustrial Code of 1869. In France the artisan classes have 
always resented payment in commodities with a peculiar 
jealousy. 

The multitudinous forms of payment other than in 
money may be rudely grouped for our present some- 
what casual purpose as (1) rent, where cottages or tene- 
ments are provided for the laborer and his family by the 
employer, whether in agricultural or in mechanical indus- 
try ; (2) board, mainly confined to unmarried laborers ; 
(3) allowances, such as definite quantities of various kinds 
of food, drink, or fuel ; (4) what we may call, in distinction 
from ISTo. 5, perquisites, such as the hauling of the labor- 
er's coal or peat by the employer's teams, the keep of a 
cow, the opportunity to take flour at millers prices f 

1 Report on the Payment of Wages Bill (1854), pp. 103-5. 

" Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of Italy, 1871, p. 
231. 

^ In Devonshire and elsewhere a " grist-coi'n" perquisite is recog- 
nized, by which the laborer is allowed to have grain at a fixed price 
per bushel, whatever the market rate. The amount so allowed to be 
taken ranges from two or three pecks to a bushel every fortnight. — 
Heath's English Peasantry, pp. 95, 96, 140, 141. 

" In some counties, as Dorset, the farmer pays part of his men's 
wages in corn at 1 shilling per bushel below the market price. " — 
Mr. Purdy, Stat. Journal, xxiv. 339. 



l^ 



23 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

(5) privileges, like the gleaning of fields or the keeping a 

pig- 

Tims Mr. T. Scott, of Roxburghshire, allows his work- 
men a free house and garden ; food (say 4 weeks) in har- 
vest ; carriage of coal ; permission to keep a pig, and the 
keep of a cow ; 100 stones of oatmeal, 21 bnshels of bar- 
ley, 6 busliels of peas, 1600 yards of potatoes, tons of 
coal at pit prices, £5 in money, in addition to extra earn- 
ings at harvest.! Another farmer gives his two plough- 
men £27 and £2G severally per annum, free cottages 
and gardens, %^ bolls of meal, 3 bolls of potatoes, and 
" drives" their coal. Another in the highland part of 
Lanarkshire gives £18 annually, the keep of a cow, liberty 
to keep a pig, C5 stones of oatmeal, and 16 cwl. of pota- 
toes. He x>laces the total value of money wages, allowances, 
etc., at from £35 to £10.^ From the above it will readily 
be seen how difficult and how nearly impossible it is to re- 
duce such various conditions to the uniform expression 
necessary for comparison. The " board " furnished may 
vary from the generous living characteristic of Cumber- 
land and Westmoreland' in England, and of the United 
States generally, to the barest and coarsest subsistence 
allowed in less favored regions. The cottages thus given 
rent free may be " model cottages" or they may be of the 
character* described in so many English official reports, • 
early and recent, with reference to which the Earl of 
Shaftesbury said, " Dirt and disrepair such as ordinary 



' Fourth Report (1870) Commission on the Employment of Women 
and Children in Agriculture, p. 58. 

'' Ibid., p. 110. = See Mr. Tremenheere's Report for 1869. 

" The Hon. Edward Stanhope, Assistant Commissioner, says of the 
cottages in Shropshire : " The point especially deserving of attention in 
this county is the infamous character of the cottages. In the majority 
of the parishes I visited they may be described as tumble-down and 
ruinous, not water-tieht, very deficient in bedroom accommodations and 
in decent sanitary arrangements." — Report on the Employment of 
Women and Children in Agriculture, 1808-9, p. xsxiv. 



PERQUISITES AND ALLOWANCES. 23 

folks can form no notion of, darkness that may be felt, 
odors that may be handled, faintness that can hardly be 
resisted, hold despotic rule in these dens of despair." i In 
respect to the other allowances, perquisites, and privileges, 
as we have classed them, which go so largely to make up 
the wages of the laborer in agriculture in all countrieo, 
there is perhaps not quite so great range as in the board or 
cottage rent furnished ; yet differences in the quality of 
the articles allowed, or in their adaptation to the wants of 
the laborer, or in the generosity with which traditional or 
stipulated privileges are interpreted, may still go far to 
contract or expand the apparent wages. Thus Mr. Heath 
in his work, " The English Peasantry," charges that the 
hauling of turf for the laborer's fuel is often a delusion 
and a snare, the turf when cut and piled up on the moors fre- 
quently being spoiled by the rain before the farmer finds 
it convenient to lend the horse and cart f also that the 
oft-cited " grist-corn" perquisite is of little or of no value 
to the laborer, the corn for this purpose being frequently 
taken from the " rakings" of the field.^ It is upon the 
cider allowance, however, that Mr. Heath expends the main 
force of his indignation, and he quotes with effect the tes- 
timony of Mr. Austin, one of the Assistant Poor-Law Com- 
missioners of 1843, as to the very inferior quality of the 
article supplied by the farmers of the western counties 
" under the ironical name of cider.*"* 

The " cow" and the " pig" as elements of wages de- 
serve a brief mention. It will be noted that we have 
placed them under diiferent heads in our classification. 
The entire " keep" of the cow is furnished by the employ- 
er over whose land she grazes ; the food of the pig, on the 
other hand, is supposed to be furnished by the laborer him- 
self, though a natural doubt on that point leads many em- 

^ Address as President Br. Soc. Sc. Association, 1366. Transac- 
tions, p. 9. 

* P. 94. = P. 95, cf. 140, 141. * Pp. 55, 56, 86, 87. 



24 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

])lovers to ivfuso tins In^-lily vmIiuhI ])rivilog'e.' '' For- 
iiKM-ly," i>;iid Mr. Iiiglis, -writinij: of the peai^ants' rout in Iiv- 
laiul in 18o4. '' tlie \^\^ was sutHeient for this ; but the market 
lias so fallen that somothinn' is wanted besides the ]>ii2: to 
make np the rent.'"' In Eng-hnul Mr. Heath assii»-ns the 
pi*i; a somewhat different function. Tt is at once " to the 
farm laborer a. kind of savino-s-bank, in which he puts the 
few scraps he can sjive out of his scanty fare,""' antl also '* a 
kind of surety with the }>etty villat>v tradesman. Poor 
1 lodge ccndd get no credit if he had not some such secu- 
rity as a j)ig affords."'* 

The keep of a cow is of course a much larger concession 
from the em[>loyer, and is proportionally rare. Sir Bald- 
wyn Leighton declares it to be not less than " the solution 
of the whole cpiestion of the agricultural laborer.'" The 
net M'eekly profit Sir Baldwyn estimates at 5 or (> shil- 
lings, tlie entu-e labor being performed by the wife and 
younger cliildren. It will, of coiu'se, be urged that such a 
concession would amount simply to a proportionate reduc- 
tion of money M'ages. This is a question which we shall 
])erhaps be in a better ]>osition to discuss hereafter. The 
concession of " cow-land " is only mentioned here as one 
of the mauy ways in which, even in wealthy communities, 
laborers in agriculture are still paid, rendering it a work of 
extreme ditticulty to reduce the wages prevailing in dilfer- 
cnt sections to any thing like equal terms. 

III. Nominal and Real Wages may further differ by 
reason of opportunities for extra earnings in some occupa- 
tions and in some localities. 

It has been said that the true measure of wages is to be 



'"In Dumfriesshire ovoix the kee])inir of ii jiiij is often ]>roliil)ited 
oil the ground that it affords inducements to littU> acts of jtecuhition." 
Fourth Keport (1870) on the Eaiph\vnient of Women and Children in 
Affriculture, p. 85. 

'•' A Journey thn^ujj^hout Irehind (4th ed.), \>. oTl. 

= English Peasantry, p. 11:5. * Ibid., p. 115. 

' Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1870, i)p. oO.j-8. 



THE FAMILY THE UNIT OF INCOME. 35 

found not in the money received, but in the amount of the 
necessaries, comforts, and kixuriers of hfe which that money 
will pm'chase. But it often liappens that the amount of 
money received oy the hiljorer as wages does not express 
tlic sum of his own earnings, while, again, the resources of 
the family — which, rather thaji the individual, ought to be 
the unit of income as it is of expenditure — may be, in many 
cases, largely augmented by the earnings of other members. 
Such opportunities vary greatly as among localities and as 
among occupations, and hence Vv-e may find a substantial 
equality of family income where a great difference in 
Avages apparently exists ; or, in other cases, the apj)arent 
difference may be much enhanced through the operation of 
the same cause. 

An example of the first means of adding to real wages 
is found in the Allotment system, which already prevails to 
a considerable extent in England and has been highly ap- 
proved by economists of reputation ; ^ thou^vfhere are not 
Avanting those who argue that this is merely another means 
of reducing money wages. By the Allotment system the 
laborer is enabled to rent a piece of ground large enough 
to employ him for but a j^ortion of his time, v/ith a view 
to its Ijeing carefully worked by spade culture as a garden. 

An example of the second means of adding to real wages 
is given by Prof. Senior v/hen he says, " The earnings of 
the wife and children' of many a Manchester weaver or 



' H. Fawcett, Pol. Econ. , pp. 354, 355. W. T. Thornton on Over 
Population, chap. viii. 

The Commissioners of 1843 reported strongly in favor of the Allot- 
ment sj'stem ; they declared that it did not tend to reduce wages, but 
that all the proceeds of the laud thus cultivated constituted " a clear 
addition to visages." 

On the other side, Mr. Mill, in his Principles of Pol. Econ., wrote, 
" "I'lie scheme, as it seems to me, must be either nugatory or mis- 
chievous."— I. 441,442. 

° The industrial disadvantages of the employment of married wo- 
men in factories will be spoken of hereafter. To tlieir full extent, 
whatever that may be, the superiority claimed by Prof. Senior for the 



26 TEE WAGES QUESTION. 

spinner exceed or equal those of himself. Those of the 
wife and children of an agricultural laborer, or of a carpen- 
ter or a coal-heaver, are generally unimportant — while the 
husband in each case receives 15 shillings a week, the 
weekly income of the one family may be 30 shillings, and 
that of the other only IT or 18 shillings.'" The income 
of the family, it is evddent, therefore, should be taken as 
the unit in estimating wages. 

IV. No consideration is more needful to be observed 
in the reduction of Nominal to Real Wages than that of 
the greater or less regularity of employment ; yet none is 
more neglected, not only in comparison of the remunera- 
tion of labor in different occupations and localities, but 
also in a still more important use of the statistics of 
wages, namely, the comparison of diiferent periods to 
ascertain whether strikes and trades unions have been 
really successful in advancing the condition of the working 
classes. It is not unusual to see the fact of an in- 
crease of wages in certain occupations following a threat- 
ened or accomplished strike, put forward as proof positive 
of the efficiency of this instrumentality, without the ques- 
tion being raised whether the certainty and continuity of 
work may not have been affected injuriously in conse- 
quence. Yet it is clear that a nominal increase of wages 
may be offset by irregidarity of employment so as not only 



spinner or weaver must be discounted. Again, so far as the employ- 
ment of the female head of the family in outside l^bor, or of very 
young children in any sort of labor, tends to reduce health and 
strength or to shorten life, this must be set off against the advantage 
of increased present earnings, in accordance with the principles to be 
noted in the paragraphs which immediately follow. 

' Lectures on Wages, pp. 8-9. 

It is not only true that the opportunities for extra earnings vary 
greatly as between different occupations, as shown by Prof. Senior's 
illustration, but such opportunities vary greatly within the same occu- 
pation in different localities. Thus Mr. Purdy's tables of Irish 
agricultural wages show that the " harvest wages" for men range 
from 3 shillings Qd. a week above ordinary wages, all the way up to 
11 shillings. — Statistical Journal, xxv. 448-50. 



BEGULAEITY OF EMPLOYMENT. 27 

to render the advance nugatory, bnt, throngli the iniluence 
on the laborer's habits of industry, temperance, and frugal- 
ity, to make the change highly pernicious. The neglect to 
make account of the regularity of employment is probably 
due not to want of candor in argument, but to the lack of 
a popular recognition of the vital unportance of this con- 
sideration. Yet it ought to be evident to the earliest 
writer on comparative wages that the true time-miit is not 
less than the entire year. The hourly, daily, or weekly 
rate of payment is but one factor of wages ; the number 
of hours, days, and weeks throughout the year for which 
that rate of wages can be obtained is the other. 

Varying regularity of employment is due to (1) the na- 
ture of the individual occupation, (2) the force of the sea- 
sons, (3) social causes, (4) industrial causes of a general 
character. 

In agriculture, for example, we find the first two causes 
operating to produce great variations in the monthly rate 
of wages. It is not alone the difference of seasons which 
makes agricultural wages so irregular ;' it is in part the 

^ This irregularity may be greater or less according to climate 
or the character of the crops. Some crops require far more days of 
labor in the year than others. Some countries are locked in frost half 
the year ; in others the ground opens early and freezes late. " In the 
countries on the Danube, these operations are spread over seven 
months ; in the countries on the north of the Volga they must be con- 
cluded in four months. " — Hearn's Plutology, pp. 74, 75. An English 
farmer is i^loughing while a New-England farmer is hauling wood on 
the ice and snow. Mr. Purdy's valuable tables (Statistical Jour- 
nal, xxiv. 352, 353) show that February is the worst month for employ- 
ment in agriculture in England ; August, the best. 

Mr. Purdy gives a table which he deems fairly representative, ex- 
hibiting the divisions of agricultural wages between the seasons as 
follows : 

Paid for Labor : 
First quarter ....... 18.9 

Second " 22.1 

Third " 38.6 

Fourth « 20.4 

100.0 



28 



THE WAGES QUESTION. 



nature of the operations involved. After the seed has 
been planted, time ninst be given it to grow, and this 
would be so even if there were no winter. So in the fish- 
eries it is not stress of weather alone which obliges the 
laborer to lie idle portions of the year, but in part the re- 
productive necessities of the fish. In other instances it is 
the force of the seasons alone which makes employment 
irregular, as for example in the brickmaking,' quariying, 
carjjentering, house-painting, and sundry other out-door 
trades. 

The loss of time from sickness, as shown by the statis- 
tics of friendly societies and by other evidence, varies 
greatly in different localities and occupations : an element 
that can not properly be excluded from the discussion of 
comparative wages, as such sickness involves not only 
loss of labor, but also, generally, a positive expense for at- 
tendance and medicine. 

The following table from Mr. Alex. Glen Finlaison's re- 
port (1853) on sickness and mortality in friendly societies, 
shows the experience of certain large groups of occupa- 
tions in this respect : • 





Light Labor. 


Heavy Labor. 


Age. 


Without cx- 


With expo- 


M'^ithout ex- 


With expo- 




posiue to the 


sure to the 


posure to the 


sure to the 




weather. 


weatlier. 


\\eathor. 


weather. 




Days lost. 


Days loft. 


Days lost. 


Days lost. 


20 


6.48 


6.00 


6.71 


7.16 


25 


6.00 


5.78 


6 82 


7.45 


30 


6.01 


5.85 


7.06 


7. ('9 


35 


6.20 


5.84 


7.45 


S.04 


40 


7.13 


7.29 


8.03 


9.40 


45 


8.03 


7.4< 


9.87 


10.78 


50 


10.48 


10.02 


12.15 


12.58 


55 


13.65 


10.66 


16.08 


14.33 


60 


17.18 


11.23 


20.36 


21.78 


65 


26.23 


18.15 


26.99 


31.55 



' In brickmakin^, in England, it is estimated that men can be em- 
ployed but 45 weeks in tlie year, in consequence of rain and frost. In 
the Northern States of America the failure of employment is for u 
much longer period. 



LOSS OF miE BY HOLIDAYS. 29 

What we call social causes in restriction of employ- 
ment include the habits of a communitj respecting festiv- 
ities and religious observances.' Yauban estimated the 
loss of labor in France from fete days and Sundays at 90 
days in the year. In some Catholic countries the holidays 
more or less scrupulously observed exceed, including Sun- 
day, one hundred. Among the Hindoos they are said to 
consume nearly half the year. It is doubtless true that 
poverty sometimes joins with superstition^ in imposing 
excessive fasts, and the want of work may account for 
the readiness with which a population surrenders itself 
to celebrating the virtues of a saint ; yet there can be 
no doubt that a force not industrial operates in some 
countries in reduction of the number of days of labor. 
A very common multiplier taken in England and the 
United States in reckoning annual earnings is 300 ; yet 
there can be little doubt that this is an exaggeration. 

But there are also industrial causes of a general nature 



' Mr. Lecky remarks of holidays in Catholic countries : " The num- 
ber that are compulsory has been grossly exaggerated." — History of 
Rationalism, ii. 333. 

Diplomatic and consular reports to the British Government give 
perhaps the most recent and exact information on the subject of holi- 
days in the Greek Church. 

Consul Calvert reports from Montastir that, reckoning Sundays, 
there are more than one hundred days in the year when the Christians 
voluntarily cease work (1870, p. 244). Consul Stuart states the number 
of days besides Sundays which the Eastern Church attempts to with- 
draw from labor at 48. Formerly, he says, the number was greater ; 
but the opposition of the working classes to the loss of so much time 
has caused a reduction in this respect, which will doubtless proceed 
further (1871, p. 780). Mr. Gould gives the number of working days 
in Greece as 365 (1870, p. 500). Consul Sandwith gives the number of 
fete days in Crete as 30 (1873, p. 383). Consul Egertoii states that in 
Russia " besides Sundays there are about 24 holidays in the year, 
when no work is allowed. Some are saints' days ; others, state holi- 
days" (1873, p. HI). 

^ Gibbon, chap, xlvii. , of the Jacobites, whose five annual Lents 
the historian is disposed to regard as an instance of " making a virtue 
of necessity." 



80 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

whicli of late years are operating more and more to inter- 
rupt tlie continuity of producticm and render employment 
precarious. These causes, though general in their origin, 
do yet affect localities and occupations very diversely, in- 
troducing thus a new element of great difficulty into the 
problem of wages. Thus there is no reason from the nature 
of the operations involved, why cotton-spinning should not 
proceed equably through all the months of the year, but in 
fact the demands of modern trade require that periods of 
heavy production shall alternate with periods of dulness 
and depression.' In the same Avay the aggregation of vast 
numbers of workmen into factories for the manufacture of 
boots and shoes has introduced an irregularity into that 
branch of manufacture which did not exist when it was 
confined to the small shop where the master worked with an 
apprentice and perhaps a journeyman, and made goods for 
a well-defined and permanent body of customers. 

Among the industrial causes which introduce this dis- 
turbance into the employment of labor must of course be 
included strikes and lock-outs. Dr. John Watts has fur- 
nished some very instnictive computations as to the first 
cost of strikes. Thus, assuming five per cent addition to 
existing wages to be the matter in dispute between the 
employer and the laborer, he shows that if the sfpilie 
succeeds its results will be, roughly speaking, as follows '."^ 

' Mr. Dudley Baxtei', speaking of the operatives in this branch of 
industry, wrote : " We all know their periodical distresses. It maj' be 
said that these were accidents. They are not mere accidents, but inci- 
dents — natural incidents of our manufacturing economy. They are 
sure to recur under different forms, either from gluts, or strikes, or war, 
and they must be allowed for in computations of earnings." — National 
Income, p. 45. 

"In 1829 the weavers of Lancashire and Cheshire were earning, 
at best, from 4.9. 4^(7. to 6s. per week when at work. The most 
favored had to wait a week or two between one piece of work and the 
next ; and about a fourth of the whole number were out of employ 
altogether." — Martineau, History of England, iii. 167. 

'^ Statistical Journal, sxiv. 501. I have sought to show elsewhere 
(w 891, n.) that all the time occupied by a strike is not necessarily lost. 



LOSS OF TIME BY STRIKES. [Jl 

Tears of work at 

the extra rate. 

The loss of 1 lunar month's wages will require to make it up, If 

" 2 " " " ■' " 31 

" " 6 " " " " " Of 

" 12i " " " " " 20 

" The strike of the London builders in 1859 was for 10 
per cent of time or its equivalent, 10 per cent of wages ; 
and as it lasted 26 weeks, would, if successful, have re- 
quired lOf years of continuous work at the extra rate to 
make up the loss of wages sacrificed. The amount in dis- 
pute between the weavers of Colne and their employers 
did not average more than 3^ per cent, and had the strike 
been success!" ul^ would have required more than 28 years 
continuous employment at the advance to make up the 
.amount of wages lost, by which time the lost wages would, 
at 5 per cent (interest), have quadrupled." This Colne 
strike lasted 50 weeks ; the great Preston strike, 38 weeks ; 
the Padiham strike, 29 weeks. 

Computations like these do not of themselves show that 
strikes can not advantage the working classes, but they do 
show the necessity of taking such elements into account in 
reducing nominal to real wages. 

The joint effect of all the causes enumerated as affect- 
ing the regularity of employment is very considerable. 
Prof. Leone Levi, in his treatise on A¥ages,' estimates the 
lost time of all the persons returned as pursuing gainful 
occupations in England to be 4 weeks in the year, and 
deems this loss covered by the exclusion of all persons 
over 60 years of age, leaving those below employed full 
time. To this Mr. Dudley Baxter, in his admirable 
work on " I^ational Licome,'" rejoins that if this were 
so, there would be no able-bodied paupers in England. 
Mr. Baxter goes forward to show the inadequacy of 
Prof. Levi's estimate in terms which I shall do well to 
quote : 

" I will take a good average instance (and a very large 

'P. 5. ^ Pp. 41,43. 



32 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

one) of the wiy in wliieli wages are earned in the building 
trades. Thcsj trades fortii a whole, and include carpen- 
ters, bricklayers, masons, plasterers, painters, and plumbers, 
and number in England and Wales about 387,000 men 
above twenty years of age. It is only the best men, work- 
ing with the best masters, that are always sure of full time. 
These trades work on the hour system, introduced at the 
instance of the men themselves, but a system of great 
precariousness of employment. The large masters giv3 
regular wages to their good workmen, but the smaller mas- 
ters, especially at the east end of London, engage a large 
proportion of their hands only for the job, and then at 
once pay them off. All masters when work grows slack 
innnediately discharge the inferior hands and the unsteady 
men — of whom there are but too many among clever work- 
men — and do not take them on again until work revives. 
In bad times there are always a large number out of em- 
ployment. In prosperity much time is lost by keeping 
Saint Monday and by occasional strikes. Let us turn to 
another great branch of industry, the agricultural labor- 
ers, whose numbers are : men, 650,000 ; boys, 190,000 ; w^o- 
men, 126,000; and girls, 36,000. Continuous employment 
has largely increased since the new Poor Law of 1834, and 
good farmers now employ their men regularly. But in 
many places such is not the custom. Near Broadstairs, in 
Kent, I was told that, on an average, laborers were only 
employed 40 weeks in the year. Mr. Purdy's figures of 
the influence of the seasons on agricultural employment 
show that the wages paid in the second quarter of the year, 
on a large estate in Notts, were 20 per cent more than in 
the first quarter. In the harvest quarter they M'ere more 
than double. He also mentions the significant fact that 
the pauperism of the five most agrarian divisions of Eng- 
land is greater in February than in August by 425,000 
against 370,000, or 55,000 persons. These 55,000 repre- 
sent a great prevalence of the custom of turning off labor- 
ers at the slack season. So that even so far as the men 



DURATION OF LABORING POWER. 33 

are concerned, there must evidently be a large deduction 
for time ont of work. But when we come to boys and wo- 
men, the case is still stronger. I found in Kent and other 
places that boys' and women's employment is very irregu- 
lar, and that they are not at work more than half their 
time ; in fact, they are only employed as supernumeraries to 
the men, and only taken on at busy times." 

Y. Still further, Nominal and Keal Wages may be made 
to differ through the longer or shorter duration of the 
power to labor. 

We have seen that it is not what the laborer obtains for 
a single day of the week or a single month of the year 
which fixes his real remuneration, but that regularity of 
employment from month to month and quarter to quarter 
is a most important element in the wages problem. But 
neither is it what the workman receives in a single year or 
in a term of years which alone can determine the question 
of high or low wages. We need, besides, to know the to- 
tal duration of his laboring power, that we may be able to 
compare the term of his productive with that of his unpro- 
ductive life. 

It is evident, supposing two persons begin to labor 
productively at fifteen years of age, and continue actively 
at work, with the same rate of nominal wages, until death, 
that the one receives a higher real remuneration who lives 
the longer, since the cost of his maintenance during the 
first 15 years of helpless life must, in any philosophical 
view of the subject, be charged upon his wages' during 

' The cost, at contract prices, of raising an orphan child to the age 
of 11, is compnted by Mr. Chadwicli (Statistical Journal, xxv. 505) at 
£130, or the value of a team of four first-class farm-horses. ^ 

The same eminent authority estimates the average loss of working 
ability, by premature deaths from ijreventibU causes, to be at least 10 
years (Stat. Journal, xxviii. 26). 

" In the production of dead machinery," says Dr. Edward Jarvis, " the 
cost of all that are broken in the making is charged to the cost of all 

which are completed So, in estimating the cost of raising 

children to manhood, it is necessary to include the number of years 



34 



77/ /•; W. I (; KS Q 67iVs'77C»JV. 



his; jxM-iod of labor. It is \vuo tlial tlio i^xihmiso M'as, in 
f;4i't, l>onu> Itv his paivnts, w liilc lie will liiiusoli" bear the 
cost ot" till" iiiaiiitiM\aiUH\ in ('InKlhooii, ol" hisown olVspriiio; ; 
but no ouc will, 1 bolio\i\ tuicstion that, in the iH'oiioniical 
S0I18C, tiu' sui>port of oach ^vnoi-ation of hiboivrs should bo 
charurd aiiainsl its own wai^vs,' just as tnilv as tliat a far- 
mer, in solvini;- the (inestion whethei- a eow dvinii" at a 
eertain ai>:o hail paiil for herself, wotdd set ao-aiiist the ])r()- 
ceeds of the sales of her milk or butter the expense oi 
reariuii" Ium*. 

If this principle of estimatinij; the wa^i-es of a lifetime 
be acci>pted as just, its i^'reat jU'actii'al importance will not 
be denied. 

And lirst in comparison o\' nations. 

In a paper on the Political Keononiy of Health, Dr. 
Kdward Jarvis has ^•jven some most instrm-tivo tables 
which can not be biMter introdnci'd than in the languaixo 
i>f the Hritish l*oor-l.aw (\>mmissii>uers of ISli* :' " The 
streniith t>f a peoj>le does iu>t iU>pend on the absolute num- 
ber oi' its population, but on the ri>IatiM> numluM* of those 
who are o( the ai^v and strength to lab(»r." 

The followiuii; table' shows the number o( years sj)ent 
muliM" -20 for eviM-y \00 persons attainini;- that ai;-e : 



Country. 


Years spont umlor SO. 


Per coHt of loss. 


Xiirwnv 


3143 

3183 
31i»3 

3o:)i 
3:!or 

2oi4 


7.1 


SwtHtt'H 


5). I 


lM)»"lai)il 


!>.({ 


I'lUtl'll St lit OS 


13, SI 


Franco 


lu.a.-) 


1 ri'huui 


25.70 







that have Ihmmi living hy tlu^so that foil hy tho way with the yoars 
of thoso that jmst* suooossfuUy throui;h tho porioil of dovolopmont." — 
Hojiort MassaolmsottM Hoard of lloaltli, 1874, p. ;M0. 

'•"liO .satairo d'un ouvrior doit oomproiidio .... I'ainorti.^so- 
niont du capital omidoy,' par sos ]iaronts. avoo loipiol il pout alimoiitor 
.<on onfaut (]ui lo n>in]>lacor un jour dans la ^■ol•iotl'." — Jos. liarnior, 
'rraitod'Kronouiio Politiquo. ]>. 4ti3. 

'P. 184. = h'oport Mass. State Board of Health, 1874. pp. o41, 343. 



nil HAT ION OF LABORING POWER. 35 

A^jiin, tlu; Life 'I'lihlcs of tlio several States sliow the 
average iiiimher of years lived after the age of 20 to ])e as 
fo]h)WS : 



("OIJNTUY. 


YicAus. 


C'OUNTIIY. 


Ykaiw. 


Norway 


39.61 

38.10 
537.40 
a5.81 


En""land 


;5i').r),'> 


Sweden 


France 


?>IM^ 


United StiiUjs (Miil(!H) 
Hanover 


Ireland 


28.88 







" Thus t]ie prochietive efficiency fell sliort of its fulness' 
20.78 per cent in Norway ; 23.7 per cent in Sweden ; 
25.08 per cent in the (Tnited States ; 28.-38 per cent in 
Germany ; 28.9 per cent in England ; 84.3 per cent in 
France, and 42.24 per cent in Ireland." 

Again Dr. Jarvis says, " .Having the nunil)er that are 
lost in the maturing period and the number of years they 
have lived, and also the number that die in the effective 
stage and the duration, of their labors, it is easy to draw 
a comparison between them and show the cost, in years, of 
creating and maturing human power, and the return it 
makes in lal)or in compensation. By this double measure- 
ment of life in its incompleteness and in its fulness it is 
found that for every 1000 years expended in the develop- 
ing period upon all that are born, both those who die and 
those who survive the period from birth to 20, the Gonse- 
qnent lahorhi// and ■produotive years are : In ^Norway, 
1881 years; in Sweden, 1741) years; in England, 1088 
years; in the United States, 10(54 years; in France, 1398 
years; and in Irc^land, 1148 years." 

But it is not oidy 1)etween the populations of distinct 
countries tliat such, differencies in the duration of the 
et'Dnoniic, force aj)|)ear. Imj)ortant differences in this re- 
spect are shown l)y mortuary statistics to exist between 
occupations. Thus the excessive mortality of the " dusty 



l/ 



' 50 years, i.e. from 30 to 70 years of age. 



36 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

trades'' lias long heeu the subject of scientific and officii! 
inquiry. The highlv injurious effects upon the lungs of 
the dust of cotton and liax mingled with " China clay" 
and other poisonous ingredients, producing a haze in tho 
atmosphere of some factories, and rising in a palpable cloud 
in others, have been thorongldy investigated and exposed 
by Drs. Ilirt' and Buchanan.'' In the " dry-grinding" of 
the metals, the deadly influences are even more positive.' 
The folhnving description of the steel-dust in a needle-fac- 
tory will sufiice for our present purpose of illustration. 
" I smelt the dust from one such manufactory before I was 
within 70 or 80 yards of it, and though in an open field ; 
and I could see the dust floating away like a cloud. It 
not only covers the roof and windows on which it settles 
with a brown rusty coat, till in time the glass becomes ob- 
scured almost as if it were painted, but so corrodes them 
as to make the slates and even the glass crumble away. 
The dust collects in the flues which carry it from the 
stove in large bla/k stalactite-like lumps. Two such were 
given me, weighing over two pounds each."* 

Mining may be given as an instance of an occupation 
where nominal wages must be heavily discounted by rea- 
son of its destructive effects on human life. When it is 
remembered thi.t in addition to the great liability to fatal 
accident,* the amount of carbonic acid gas, which in nature 



' Kranklieiten der Arbeitor. 

- Returns to the order of the House of Commons, 13tli May, 1873. 

' See tlie evidence collected l\v Mr. Jellinger Syinons under tlie Eng- 
lish Commission of 1841 ; also. Dr. Greenhow's report in 1809, in the 
Third Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council. 

* Report of Mr. J. E. ^^'hite, Asst. Commr. Employment of Women 
and Children, 18(55. 

* Sir Thomas Bazley's report for 1870 states the number of deaths 
from accidents in collieries and ironstone mines at 991. In the same 
year o73 persons were killed in works under the Factory acts ; 1378 
were so injured that amputation was required, while the lesser inju- 
ries footed up 16,828. 

" E:i France, ces accidents sont beaucoup plus rares.et Sexploitation 



MORTALITY AMONG OCCUPATIONS. 37 

is 300-350 in 1,000,000, and does not ordinarily exceed 
3000 in tlie stifling atmosphere of factories and workshops, 
often goes up to 20,000 in the air of mines,' the exces- 
sive mortality within this occupation will not be a matter 
of wonder. Dr. Scott Allison found the average age of 
the living male heads of families of the collier population 
at Tranent, so far as the same could be ascertained, to be 
34 years, while the average age of the living male heads of • / 
the agricultural families was nearly 52 years. Dr. Allison 
expressed the belief that these proportions would serve as 
fair indications of the relative conditions of the different 
populations.'^ 

" So considerable," says Dr. I^eison, in a recent paper,' 
" is the influence of occupation that the mortality in one 
avocation exceeds that of another by as much as 239 per 
cent." 

Thus taking the period of life 25 to 66, Dr. ISTeison finds 
the mean mortality in the clerical profession to be 1.12 per 
cent ; in the legal, 1,5Y ; in the medical, 1.81. In domestic 
service the mortality among gardeners was but .93 ; among 
grooms, 1.26 ; among servants, 1.6Y ; among coachmen, 
1.81. The effect of out-door exposure in all kinds of weather 
is here shown alike in the case of the physician and the 
coachman. Of several branches of manufacture, the paper 
manufacture showed a mean mortality of 1 .45 ; the tin ^ 
manufacture, of 1.61; the iron manufacture, of 1.75; the 
glass manufacture, of 1.83 ; the copper manufacture, of 
2.16 ; the lead manufacture, of 2.21 ; the earthenware man- 
ufacture* of 2.57. Among the different kinds of mining 

des mines n'a jamais ete mise au nombre des industries qui creent une 
position insupportable aux ouvriers." — Theodore Fix, Les Classes 
Oavrieres, p. 146. 

'Dr. Angus Smith, Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1865, p. 241. 

^ Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners of 1842, p. 200. 

^ Journal of the Institute of Actuaries, July, 1872, p. 98. 

* The mortality among the " china-scourers" is something fright- 
ful. " In all the process the operatives are exposed to the inhaling of 



38 TUB WAGES QUESTION. 

iiidustiy the raiig-e is even greater. Thus the mean mor- 
tality of iron-miners is 1.80 ; of eoal-miners, 1.82 ; of tin- 
miners, 1.99 ; of lead-miners, 2.50 ' ; of coj^per-miners, 
3.17.= 

But it is not alone by death that the laboring power is 
prematurely destroyed. The agricultural laborer of Eng- 
land, for example, wlio is long lived, often becomes crip- 
])led early by rheumatism due to exposure and privation. 
" Then he has to work for 4 shillings or 5 shillings per 
week, supplemented scantily from the rates, and at last to 
come, for the rest of his life, on the rates altogether. Such 
is, I will not call it the life, but the existence or vegetation, 
of the Devon peasant. He hardly can keep soul and body 
together.'" 

In the same country, Mr. Dudley Baxter states, there are 
40,000 men out of less than 400,000 in the building trades 
who between 55 and (35 are considered as past hard w(>rk. 
In othei' trades, he says, a man is disa])led at 55 or 50, \ 
coal-backer is considered past work at 40." 

I can not better close this protracted chapter than with 
the followino; words taken from the address of Sir Stafford 
Northcote, as President of the British Social Science Asso- 
ciation : " A man who earns a pound a week is not neces- 
sarily twice as well olf as a man who earns 10 shillings. 



the fine dust with wliioh the air of the different workshops is charg-ed, 
and which dust the finer it is the longer it floats in the atniosphen; 
and the more dangei-ous it becomes." — Ibid., p. 109. 

' " The diseases engendered by lead-mining may be stated as asthma 
and chronic bronchitis." — Ibid., p. 103. 

■•' The heat in copper-mines was found by Dr. Greenliow to be very 
much greater than in tin-mines. In one mine which he visited the 
temperature was I'^T. " Steam was coming out of the shaft in 
volumes at the time of inspection." 

^ Letter of Canon (iirdlestone to Mr. Heath, " Peasantry of Eng- 
land," p. 100. 

* National Income, pp. 41, 43. 



NOMINAL AND REAL WAGES. 39 

You must take into account tlie amount of work which 
they respectively have to do for their money, the number 
of hours they are employed, the amount of strain upon the 
body and on the brain, the chance of accident, the general 
effect upon the health and upon the duration of life.'" 

^Transactions, 1869, p. 18. 



CHAPTER III. 

NOMINAL AND REAL COST OF LABOR. 

Another distinction which needs to be strongly marked 
is that between "Wages and the Cost of Labor. 

In treating wages as high orlow^ weoccnpy the Laborer's 
])oint of view ; in treating the cost of labor as high or low 
Ave occnpy the point of view of the employer. Wages are 
high or low according to the abundance or scantiness of the 
necessaries, comforts, and hixnries of life which the laborer 
can command, without particular reference to the value of 
the service which he renders to the employer therefor. 
The cost of labor, on the other hand, is high or low accord- 
ing as the employer gets an ample or a scanty return for 
Avhat he pays the laborer, whether the same be expressed 
in money or in commodities for consumption, and this 
without the least respect to the well-being of the laborer. 

Now this distinction is not of importance merely because 
such a distinction can be drawn, and the same object look- 
ed at from different points of view. Not only are the 
])oints of view here diametrically opposed, but the objects 
contemplated are not necessarily the same, so that high 
wages do not imply a high cost of labor, or low wages a knv 
cost of labor. A sufficient demonstration of this, for the 
]>resent moment, is found in the well-known fact that em- 
ployers usually take on their lowest-paid laborers last, and 



NOMINAL AND REAL COST OF LABOR. 41 

discharge them first.^ The explanation is found in the 
varying 

EFFICIENCY OF LABOR. 

The extent to which this consideration is popularly neg- 
lected may be seen by recurring to any discussion of the 
question of " protection," whether in the legislature or in 
the public press. A day's labor is almost universally taken 
as the unit of measure in determining the cost of similar 
products in different countries. In fact, " a day's labor" 
conveys scarcely a more definite idea than the boy's com- 
parison, " big as a piece of chalk," or "• long as a string." 
The mere announcement that a day's labor can be had in 
one country for 10 cents, in another for 50, while in a third 
it commands $1.50, conveys to the mind of one familiar 
with the statistics of industry not even an impression as to 
the comparative cost of labor in the several countries. Yet 
it has been held by a large party in the United States to 
be conclusive of the question of " protection," that labor- 
ers in other countries are more scantily remunerated than 
in our own. The avowed object of protective tariffs here 
has been to keep wages from sinking to the level of Europe 
and Asia. The allusions to " pauj)er labor" which crowd 
the speeches of Clay, Stewart, and Kelley have sig- 
nificance only as it is assumed that a day's labor in one 
place is the economical equivalent of a day's labor any- 
where, and that one man's labor is effective in the same 
degree as that of any other man. 

It is, however, very far from the truth that a day's labor 
is always and everywhere the same thing. We can 
scarcely take the estimate adopted by Lord Mahon,^ that 



'Masters " prefer tliose laborers wlio earn tlie most wages." — Mr. 
Cliadwick, Statistical Journal, xxv. 510. 

Sir Josepli Whitwortli, tlie great manufacturer of cannon, told Mr. 
Cliadwick tliat " lie could not afford to work his machines with a horse 
that cost less than £30." — Ibid. 

^ History of England, vii., pp. 229,330. 



43 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

an English wood-sawyer will perform as miicli work in the 
same time as thirty-two East-Indians, as giving the general 
ratio' between labor in the two conntries ; yet, on the 
other hand, the comparison is not absolutely an extreme 
one. The difference between an English woodsawyer, 
before a pile of hickory cordwood, and an effeminate East- 
Indian, accustomed to think it a day's job to saw off a 
few lengths of bamboo, is not so great as that which would 
exist between a Maine mast-man and a Bengalee at the 
foot of a ttO-inch pine. The one would lay the monster 
low in half a day, the other might peck at it a week and 
scarcely get through the bark. In the contests of industry 
the civilized, organized, disciplined, and highly-equipped 
nations may safely entertain nmch the same contempt for 
barbarous antagonists as in the contests of war. " The wolf 
cares not how many the sheep be," said one concpieror ; 
" The thicker the grass," said another, " the easier it is 
mown." So vast are the differences in this matter of the 
efficiency of laljor that it is difficult to write respecting 
them without producing the impression of a disposition to 
exaggerate, if the reader has not specially studied the con- 
ditions of production and is unacquainted with the statis- 
tics of industry. Yet in sober earnest Ave may borrow the 
language of Edmund Burke respecting the political adapt- 
ations of men, and say that, in industry as in government, 
men of different nationalities may be regarded as so many 
different kinds of animals. 

The testimony to the varying efficiency of labor comes 



' Prof. Senior, in his Lectures on Wages, stated tlie average annual 
wages of labor in Hindostan at from one pound to two pounds troy of 

silver against nine pounds to fifteen pounds troy in England 

Mr. Finnie, who was engaged by the Madras Government as superin- 
tendent of the cotton experiment from 1845-9, says, " the interest of 
the money invested in the purchase of a laborer in America, added to 
the actual cost of his maintenance, would pay for nine able-bodied men 
in India." — "NMieeler's Cotton Cultivation, p. 100. 



NATIONALITY IN LABOR. 43 

from so many sources that our only difficulty is tliat of 
selection. The comparison of the English with the Irish 
laborer, whether as a cottar tenant at home or working 
for hire in the northern counties of England, used to be a 
favorite one with economists before the famine and the 
emigration. Of late this disparagement of Irish labor has 
become infrecpient. In the last century Arthur Young, 
the eminent traveller, who spent two years near Cork as 
the manager of a large estate, declared an Essex laborer at 
2 shillings 6 pence a day to be cheaper than a Tipperary 
laborer at 5 pence. The improvement in the condition of 
the Irish peasant and in the methods of industry in Ireland 
was very marked in the seventy years which next follow- 
ed ; but in 1845 Dr. Kane, in his work on the Industrial 
Resources of that country, placed the number of native 
laberers retpiisite for a given production at tM^o or more 
where one English laborer w^ould suffice (pp. 397-9). In 
the iron manufacture he gives the ratio as three to one. 

In the same manner the Russian serf w^as, up to tlie time 
of the Emancipation, often adduced as illustrating the low 
efficiency of brutalized and underfed labor. Thus Prof. 
Jones says : "In spite of the dearness of provisions in 
England and their cheapness in Russia, the mowing a quan- 
tity of hay which would cost an English farmer half a 
copeck, will cost a Russian farmer three or four copecks." 

But it is not only in comparison with the oppressed 
laborers of Ireland and with the serfs of Russia that the 
superiority of English labor has been asserted on high 
authority. Mr. Edwin Rose, long employed as an operative 
engineer in France and Germany, testified before the Fac- 
tory Commission, forty years and more ago, that it required 
fully twice as many hands to perform most kinds of fac- 
tory work in France and Switzerland as in England ; and 
the statistics of per capita product and of the ratio between 
hands and machines amply bore out. Mr. Rose's statement. 
The estimate of Mr. Briavoinne, founded on the total pro- 
duction of Belgimn, gave 116 pieces of cloth printed for 



44 TUE WAGES QUESTION. 

each workman per anuuia. The pivduetlon of certain 
establislunents, liowever, was estinuited as hii>'h as 3(U 
pieces. At the Siune time the workmen of the givat 
establishment of Aiilsworth tfe Co.» in EnghuKl, were turu- 
ing ont UHH) pieces per head. In cotton-spinning\ again, 
we tinil from th« best international statistics avaiUible that 
the number of spindles attended by a single operative to-day 
in England ranges fn>m t\Vi> to four times the correspond- 
ing number ou the Continent.' The statistics of the iron 
industry of France show that on the average ^'2 men are 
employed to do the same work in smelting pig iron, as is 
done by 25 men at the (^larence Factories un the Tees. 
And so it comes about that, while wages are higher in 
England than in any other country of Emvpe, English 
mauufactmvs have to be excluded by heavy duties from 
eenipetition with the so-called cheaper labor* of the Con- 
tinent. 



' " In the weaviuor-mUIs a Russian nvri>ly has the eare of inore 
than two U)om!i. whUe in En^rhind a weaver will frequent l_v UKik 
after six." (.Report of H. B, M. Consiul Egerton on the Faetory 
System of Russia, 1873. p. 111.) Mr. Batbie states that the Eng-Ush 
farmers on the shores of the Hellespont prefer to give 10 ix)uuds 
sterling a year for Cireek laborers to giving 3 jwunds for Turk 
ish laK>rers. (Nouveau Cours de lEi-ououue, i. 7>.) Even with the 
best , Continental labor there is a decided inferiority to English 
rates of pn-Klui-tion. In Switzerland the number of hands employed 
{>er 1000 spindles does not average less than 8 to 8^, ag^xinst 7 in Eng- 
land. (Report of Mr. Gould ou the Factory System of Switzerland. 
1873. p. Vid.) 

In England, moreover, it should be noted, the machinery is almost 
uniformly run at a speed not known ou the Continent. 

^ Whereas female lalK>r in the cotton manufacture is {>aid at from 
13*i. to I ">.;<. a week in Great Britain: at from 7^. 3<?. to 9.x. 7il. in 
France. Belgium, and Germany ; at from 3.'<. 4<?. to "is. \ld: in Rus- 
sia, the one thing which is most dreaded by the Continental manufae 
turt^rs everywhere is British cv>un>etition. The demand for protection 
is loudest iti France, Austria, and Russia, where the average wages 
r«ich their minimum. . . . 

The average price of labi>r \>er day for puddlers is 7.*. 0(1. to 7.«. 
10(?. in Staffordshire ; lx<, -id. in France ; and from 4-!i, liL to 5*. in 



NATIONALITY IN LABOR. 45 

But by far the most important body of evidence on tlie 
varying efficiency of labor is contained in the treatise of 
Mr. Tliomas Bj-assey, M.P., entitled " Work and Wages," 
published in 1872. Mr. Brassey's father was perhaps the 
greatest " captain of industry" the world has ever seen, 
having been engaged, between 1834 and 18T0, in the con- 
struction of railways in England, France, Saxony, Austria, 
Hungary, Moldavia, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Canada, Aus- 
tralia, the Argentine Republic, Syria, Persia, and India. 
" There were periods in his career," says Sir Arthur Helps,' 
" during M^hich he and his partners were giving employ- 
ment to 80,000, upon works requiring seventeen millions 
(sterling) of capital for their completion." The aggregate 
length of the railways thus coiistructed appears to have ex- 
ceeded six thousand five hundred miles. The chief value 
of Mr. Brassey, Jr.'s work is derived from his possession 
of the full and authentic labor-accounts of his father's 
transactions. " Frenchmen, Belgians, Germans, Italians, 
Russians, Spaniards, and Danes came under the close in- 
spection of Mr. Brassey and his agents ; and we are told 
how the men of these various nationalities acquitted them- 
selves in their respective employments."^ Some of the 
results of this vast experiment of labor are given by Mr. 
Brassey, Jr., in his chapter on i\\e Cost of Labor. 

On the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada the French- 
Canadian laborers received 3.s. Qd. a day, while the 
Englishmen received from 5.?. to 6-?. a day ; " but it was 
found that the English did the greatest amount of work 
for the money."' 

■ Contrasting the wages paid on an English railway, 35. 
to 3-?. Qd. a clay, with those paid on an Irish road. Is. 6d. 



Be]g:iuni. Yet the average price of me reliant bar-iron was £6 10s. in 
England, £7 in Belgium, £8 in France. — Mr. D. A. Wells' reports, as 
Special Commissioner TJ. S. Revenue. 

* Brassey's Life and Labors, p. 160. ^ Ibid., Preface, xvi. 

^ Work and Wages, p. 87. 



46 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

to Is. Sd., Mr. Brassey remarks, " Yet witli tliis immense 
difference in the rate of wages, sub-contracts on the Irish 
railway were let at the same prices which had been pre- 
viously paid in South Staffordshire.'"' 

" In India, although the cost of daily labor ranges from 4|- 
to 6d. a day, mile for mile the cost of railway work is 
about the same as in England." " In Italy, masonry and 
other work requiring skilled labor is rather dearer than 
in England.'" 

" Great pains were taken to ascertain the relative indus- 
trial capacity of the Englishman^ and the Erenchman on 
the Paris and Rouen line ; and on comparison of half a 
dozen ' pays,' it was found that the capacity of the English- 
man was to that of the Frenchman as five to three.'" 
" Mining is perhaps the most exhausting and laborious of 
all occupations. It has been found that in this description 
of work the English miner surpasses the foreigner all over 
the world. On the Continent, long after earth-wovk and 
all the other operations involved in the construction of 
railways had been committed to the native wi^rkmen, Eng- 
lish miners were still employed in the tunnels." 

" In the quarry at Bonnieres, in which Frenchmen, 
Irishmen, and Englishmen were employed side by side, 
the Frenchman received three, the Irishman four, and 
the Englishman six francs a day. At those different 
rates, the Englishman was found to be the most advanta- 
geous workman of the three."^ 

Such differences in industrial efficiency as have been in- 
dicated may exist not only between nations, but between 
geographical sections of the same people. The very mi- 



» Work and Wa^es, p. 69. ^ Ibid., p. 90. 

^ Four thousand Englishmen were sent over to work on this road. 
—Ibid., p. 79. 

Two thousand English and Scotch were sent to Australia to work on 
the Queensland line. 

Mbid., p. 115. ^ Ibid., p. 82. 



NOMINAL AND REAL COST OF LABOR. 47 

niite and careful researches of M. Diipiii in the early part of 
tliis century seemed to establish a decided superiority in 
productive power of the artisans of northern over those 
of southern France. In England the superiority of the 
agricultural population of the northern comities is unmis- 
takably very great. " Any one," says Mr. Mundella, M.P., 
" wlio has witnessed agricultural operations in the west 
of England, will agree that the ill-paid and ill-fed laborer 
of those parts is dearer at 9^. or 1 i)s. per week than the 
JSTottinghamshire man at I65.'" " It w^ould be a great 
mistake," says Mr. Walter Bagehot, in the Economist,'' " to 
put down as equal the day's hire of a Dorsetshire laborer 
and that of a Lincolnshire laborer. It would be like having 
a general price for steam-engines not specify irvj the horse- 
power. The Lincolnshire man is far the more efficient 
man of the two." 

From a single page of the Report for 18'o9 of the 
Commission on the Employment of Children, Women and 
Young Persons in Agriculture, I extract the following- 
testimony respecting the inefficiency of the laborers of 
Berkshire : " I would rather pay a JSTorthumbrian hind 
16 shillings a week than a Berks carter 12 shillings," 
testifies one farm bailiff. "' Our men here," says an- 
other, " are very inferior to Scotch laborers f two men 
there do as much as three here." Another bailiff testifies 
that " he was obliged to employ as many men in Berkshire, 
at certain kinds of work, as he had been accustomed to 
employ of w^omen in Perthshire."* 



1 Social Sc. Trans., 1868, p. 524. ^ January 24tli, 1874. 

' " I protest," so writes a farmer, " that one of tlie Scotchmen whom 
I formerly employed would do as much work as two or even three 
Suffolk laborers. It ' makes one's flesh creep ' to see some of the lat- 
ter at work." — Clifford, Agricultural Lock-out of 1874, p. 25, note. 

* Second Report, p. 105. " I have myself in Northumberland heard 
a Northumbrian farmer declare that one of the strong big-boned wo- 
men who worked in his fields was worth mucli more than any average 
southern laborer." — Clifford, Agric, Lock-out of 1374, p. 25. 



48 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

Ill view of sueli wide differences in the productive power 
of individuals, coinmunities, and peoples, no attempt at a 
pliilosopliy of wages can omit to inquire into the causes 
of the varying efficiency of lahor. Tliese causes I shall 
enumerate under six heads ; but the possible effect of no 
one cause will be fully apprehended unless it be held 
constantly in mind that ^Ae value of the laborer s services to 
the employer is the net r'esidt of two elements^ one pos'ttlve, 
one negative, nainely, work and waste ; that in some degree 
waste, using the term in its broadest sense to express the 
breakage and the undue wear and tear of implements and 
machinery, the destruction or impairment of materials.' 
the cost of supervision and oversight to keep men from 
idling or blundering, and, linally, the hinderance of many 
by the fault or failure of one,'^ is inseparable from work ; 
and that, with the highly Unished products of our modern 
industry, with its complicated and often delicate macliine- 
ry, and its costly materials, themselves perhaps the result 
of many antecedent processes, it is frequently a question of 



' On tills point of waste I select two illnstrations. The first is 
taken from an address of Cieorge J. Ilolyoake, the historian of Co-opera- 
tion : 

" It lias been calculated that the working colliers at Whitwood and 
Methley could, by simply taking the trouble to get the coal in large 
lum]is, and by reducing the proportions of slack, add to the colliery 
profits £1500 a year. If they would further take a little extra care below 
ground in keeping the best coal separate from the inferior, they could 
add another £1500 to the profits." (Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1865, p. 
482.) All this without diminishing their own earnings. 

The second is the result of an experiment, noticed in the Statutical 
Journal (xxviii., pp. 32, 33), for the economy of coal in an engine-fur- 
nace, through giving the stokers a share in the money value of what- 
ever saving might be effected. The result was to reduce the consump- 
tion of fuel, without loss of power, from 30 to 17. 

- H. B. M. Consul Egerton, in his admirable report of 1873 (Textile 
Factories), notes the great irregularity of attendance at work in Rus- 
sia. " It is therefore essential to have a large staff of supernumeraries 
who have learnt their work, so as to be ready to supply the vacant 
place? "—P. 112. 



CAUSES OF VARYING EFFICIENCY. 49 

more or less Avaste wlietlier work shall be worth having' 
or not. 

The varions causes w^hich go to create differences in in- 
dustrial efficiency may be grouped under six heads, as fol- 
lows : 

I. Peculiarities of stock and breeding. 

II. The meagreness or liberality of diet. 

III. Habits, voluntary or involuntary, respecting clean- 
liness of the person, and purity of air and water. 

lY. The general intelligence of the laborer. 

V. Technical education and industrial environment. 

YI. Cheerfulness and hopefulness in labor, growing 
out of self-respect and social ambition, and the laborer's 
interest in the results of his work. 

The first reason which we are called to recognize for 
the great differences in industrial efficiency which exist 
among men is found in peculiarities of stock and breeding. 
Of the causes which have produced such widely diverse 
types of manhood as the Esquimaux, the Hottentot, and 
the Bengalee at the one extreme, and the Frenchman, the 
Englishman, and the American of to-day at the other,^ it 
is not necessary to speak here at all. The effects of local 
climate and national food, continued through generations, 
upon the physical structure, have become so familiar to the 
public through the writings of geographers and ethnologists 
that they may fairly be assumed for our present purpose. 
The scope and power of these causes are far more likely to 



' " It may appear incredible," remarks Mr. Carleton Tuffnell, the 
Poor-Law Commissioner, " that a great demand for labor may exist 
simultaneously with a multitude of people seeking employment and 
unable to find it. The real demand is not simply for labor, but trained 
labor, efficient labor, intelligent labor." 

' M. Batbie states the results of certain experiments with the dyna- 
mometer by which it appears that while the figure 50 represents the 
sheer lifting-weight of a native of Van Diemen's Land, 71 represents 
that of an Anglo- Australian cultivator. — Nouveau cours de I'Economie 
politique, i. 70. 



50 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

he magnified than disparaged by the scientific spirit of 
this age. But we have also to recognize large differences 
as existing between far advanced and highly civilized peo- 
ples as to average height, strength, manual dexterity, 
accuracy of vision, health, and longevity. 

Thns, for example, the mean height of the Belgian 
male was given by MM. Quetelet and Villerme, about 
1836, as 5 feet Gj^q- inches ; that of the Frenchman, as 5 feet 
4 inches ; that of the Englishman, 5 feet 0^ inches. Such 
differences in statm-e exist as well between sections of the 
same country ; thus the Breton peasants are notably defi- 
cient even as measured by the low French standard ; while 
the proportion of '' tall men" {i.e., 6 feet) examiued for the 
British army was out of every 10,000 English, 104: ; out of 
every 10,000 Scotchmen, 191: ; ont of every 10,000 Irish- 
men, 91.' 

At the sauie time, the largest proportion of rejections 
for nnsonndness M-as among the Irish, the least among the 
Scotch. MM. Quetelet and Villerme give the following 
detenninations of mean weight for the same three coim- 
tries : 



' This statement is taken from Mr. Thornton " On Labor," p. 16, n. 
Of the (very) " tall men" (6 feet 3 inches) enlisted in the U. S. army, 
1831-5, there were of each 100,000— of English birth, 103 ; of Scotch, 
178 ; of Iri.-^h, t:^ 1 (Statistical Memoirs of the Sanitary Commission, p. 159) ; 
while of the " short men" (under 5 feet 1 inch) there were in 100,031 
— of English, 690 ; of Scotch, 610 ; and of Irish, only 450, the proportion- 
al number of Germans in this class rising to 770, and of Frenchmen to 
950. (Tbid., p. 177.) The mean height of the native soldiers was much 
reduced by the enlistment of large numbers of very young persons ; 
but if we take the soldiers from 35 years upwards, we find the natives 
of the United States surpassing in stature those of every other nation- 
ality. Thus the mean lieight of soldiers from New-England was, in 
inches, 68.300; New- York, New-Jersey, and Pennsylvania, 68.096; 
Ohio and Indiana, 68.980; Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, 68.781 >" 
Kentucky and Tennessee, 69.274, etc. ; while the mean height of 
soldiers born in Canada was 67.300 ; England, 66.990 ; Scotland, 67.647 ; 
Ireland, 67.090 ; France, Belgium, and Switzerland, 66.714 ; Germany, 
66.718; Scandinavia, 67.299. (Ibid., pp. 104, 105.) 



DIFFERENCES IN NATIONAL PRTSIQVE. 51 

Lbs. avoirdupois. 

Belgian, male (Brussels and environs) L40.49 

Frenchman (Paris and environs) 136.89 

Englishman (Cambridge) 150.98 

There is reason to suspect that these are all pitched a 
little high. Among the sections of the American Union 
the difference in mean weight, as determined by measm^e- 
ments during the war, 1861-5, was very decided. Thus of 
men weighed in health, those from New-England averaged 
140.05 lbs.; those from I^ew-York, N^ew-Jersey, and Penn- 
sylvania, 141.39 ; those from Ohio and Indiana, 145.99 ; 
those from Kentucky and Tennessee, 150.58.* 

Such and other physical differences on which it is not 
needful to dwell are due in part to the influences of local 
climate and national diet, but in part, also, to causes social 
and industrial. 

Of social causes ample, in their aggregate effect, to pro- 
duce much of the difference between the Englishman 
and the Frenchman of to-day, may be instanced the war 
system, by which, in France, the principle of natural 
selection has been violently reversed, and the men of 
superior size, strength, and courage have, generation 
after generation, been shut up in barracks or torn 
to pieces on the battle-field, while the feebler males 
have been left at home to propagate the stock. It 
is beyond question that not a little of the difference 
in industrial efficiency which makes a French navvy 
dear at 3 francs, while an English navvy is cheap at 5^. Gd., 
is due to the wholesale operation of this cause among the 
French people during the eighty years since 1793, during 
which time the standard of the army has been reduced 
from 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 1|- inch. During the same 



^ Statistical Memoirs U. S. Sanitary Commission, p. 403. As was 
remarked respecting mean height, the average of the native soldiers of 
the U. S. army was brought down by the great number of boys en- 
listed. 



53 THE WAGES QVESTIOX. 

period the Freiuli horse "was steadily gaining in size and 
weight. 

Among the industrial causes tending to create such 
diiferences in laboring power we may instance the em- 
])loyment of children of tender age at hard labor and imder 
circumstances of exposure ; and the emph)yment of wo- 
men, iirst, in work Avholly unsuited to their sex, as former- 
ly in England in mines, where tliey were even harnessed 
with cattle to loads of ore, and as now on the pit-banks 
and coke-hearths, and, secondly, at their ordinary work 
with too short an intor\al after eliildbearing,' 

Looked at with no eye of charity, but with a strictly 
economical regard, such acts as these constitute a horrible 
waste of industrial force, both in the present and in their 
effects on the laboring power of the next generation. 
. At the meeting of the Social Science Association in 
1 870, Mr. George Smith presented a lump of clay weighing 
43 lbs. . which in a wet state he had taken, a few days before, 
off the head of a child years of age, who had daily to 
walk 12^ miles in a brickyard, half that distance with such 
a burden. " The clay," said ]Mr. Smith, '* was taken from 
the child, and the calculations made by me, in the presence 
of both master and men.''* Two or three instances taken 
at random from tlie report^ of Mr. J. E. AMiite, Assist- 



' Speaking alike of the weaviilg-sheds of the cotton districts and of 
the wooHen districts, Dr. Bridges and Mr. Holmes, in their report to the 
Local Government Board, iu 1873, say : " The work is done in the 
groat majority of cases by women ; a considerable portion of these are 
married, and the practice of working until the last stage of pregnancy, 
and of returning to work within a month, sometimes within a fortnight, 
or even a week, of childbirth, is as common iu the West Biding (of 
York) as in Lancashire." (Report, p. 33. cf. pp. 38,39, So.) An old fac- 
tory surgeon says : " I regard the mother's return to the mill as almost 
a sentence of death to the child." It is also a fruitful source of per- 
manent injury to the mother herself. 

' Transactiors, p. 537. 

' Fourth Report (1865) of the Children's Employment Commission 
of 1862. 



EXCESSIVE LABOR IN CHILDHOOD. 53 

ant Commissioner, 1865, will perhaps help the American 
reader to appreciate the scope and force of the cause we are 
adducing. A boj, now II, who went at 9 years old to 
hardening and tempering crinoline steel, worked there 
from 7 A.M. till 9|- p.m. four nights a week " for many 
and many a month," " many a time till 12 at night," and 
once or twice worked from 7 in the morning all through 
the next night and day, and on till 12 the following night. ,J 
Another, at 9 years old, sometimes made three 12-hour 
shifts running, and, when 10, has made two days and two 
nights running. Another, now 13, at a former place 
worked from 6 p.m. till noon next day for a week toge- 
ther, and sometimes for three shifts together, e.g., from 
Monday morning till Tuesday night. 

JSTor is it only in mines or factories, in a stifling atmo- 
sphere and amid poisonous exhalations, that children are, 
even yet, in happy England, exposed to the influences 
which stunt, distort, and weaken them, and lower the 
average vitality of the population, and with this its indus- 
trial efficiency. The driving of children six, eight, and ten 
years' afield to work for 12 and 14 hours, whether under a 
hot sun or against chilling, cutting winds, must tend to 
disorganize the cartilages of the joints, to produce curva- 
ture of the spine, to dwarf the growth, and to prepare the 
way for an early breaking down from rheumatism and 
scrofula. 

I repeat I have not adduced these facts and incidents for 
charity's sake, or in any sentimental vein, but wholly for 
their economical significance, and I propose to use them 
in strict subordination to recognized economical principles. 

II. A further reason for the greater industrial efficiency 
of one laborer than of another, and of one class or nation of 
laborers than of another, is a most vulgar one, namely, better 



' See the reports of the Commission of 1862 on the Employment of 
Children, and of the Commission of 1867 on the Employment of Wo- 
men and Children. 



54 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

feeding. The human stomach is to the animal frame M'liat 
the furnaee is to the steam-engine. It is there the force is 
generated which is to drive th.^ ni.vcliine. The power with 
whicli an engine will work will, np to a certain point, in- 
crease with evei'v addition made to the fuel in the furnace ; 
and. within the limits of thorough digestion and assimi- 
lation, it is etpially true that the power which the lahorer 
will carrv into his work will depend on the character and 
auiount of his food. What the employer will get out of 
his workman will depond, therefore, very nnich on what 
he tirst gets into him. Not only are bone and nmscle to 
he built up aiul kept n]> by food, but every stroke of the 
arm involves an exp^Muliture of nervous energy, which is 
to be supplied only through the alimentary canal. AVhat 
a man can do in '1\ hours will depend very nnich on what 
lie can have to eat in those '1\ hours ; or perhaps it would 
be more correct to say, what he has had to eat the 24 hours 
]>revious. If his diet be liberal, his wtu'k may be mighty. 
If he be underfed, he n\nst underwork. 80 far away as 
the Hundred Years' AYar, Knglishmen were accustomed to 
assign a more generous diet as the reason why their " beef- 
fed knaves" so easily vanquished their traditional enemies, 
and even into this century the island Avriters were accus- 
tomed to speak as if still for the Siune reason, in work at 
least if not in war, 

" Upou 0110 imir of English lo^.s did march three Frenchmen."' 
Of course in this, as in every other department of 

' " Each Frenchman consumes on an average 16 oz. of wlieaten bread 
a day ; each Englishman, 33 oz. ; the former, I3 oz. of meat ; the latter, 
6 oz." — Alison, Eumpe, 1815-51, ch. xvii., sec. 126. 

•' Des experiences out demoutrS que I'ouvrier frau(;ais, lorsqu'il est 
auasi bien nourri qn'uu ouvrier anghiis rend a pen pres autant de tra- 
vail." — Batbie. Xouveau ('ours de TEconomie politique, i. 71. 

1 should be disponed to believe that a somewhat greater difference 
wauld remain, notwithstanding equivalent subsistence, than M. Bat- 
bie's patriotism will allow him to confess. The causes adduced un- 
d.^r the previous head must count for much. 



RELATIONS OF FOOD TO WORK. 55 

expenditure, there is an economical maximnm, where the 
greatest proportional return is received. Beyond this, 
though an increase of food may yield an increase of force, 
it does not yield a proportional increase, just as in a furnace 
with a given height of chimney, the combustion of a given 
number of pounds of coal to the square foot of grate-sur- 
face yields the economical maximum of power. More fuel 
burned will evaporate more water, but not proportionally 
more. With the laborer the economical maximum of 
expenditure on food is reached far short of the point at 
which " gorging and guzzling" begin ; it shuts off every 
thing that partakes of luxury or ministers to delicacy ; yet 
till that maximum be reached every addition to food brings 
a proportional, or more than proportional, addition of 
working strength. To stop far short of that limit and 
starve the laboring man is as bad economy as to rob the 
engine of its fuel. Thus with a furnace of a given height, 
having for its economical maximum 12 lbs. of coal to the 
square foot of grate-surface, the consumption of 6 lbs. 
might yield far less than one half the power, while 3 lbs. 
might scarcely serve to keep the furnace warm under the 
constant loss by radiation and the cooling influence of the 
water in the boilers. In much the same way a laborer 
may be kept on so low an allowance of food that it will 
all go to keeping the man alive, and nothing be left to 
generate working power.' From this low point, where the 
bad economy of starving the laborer is manifest even to 
the most selfish or stupid overseer, up to a point where it 
requires a great deal of good sense and more magnanimity 
of character on the part of the employer to make him feel 
sure of a return for added expenditure, there is a steady 



' Mr. R. R. Torrens, M.P., stated, at the meeting of the Social Sci- 
ence Association in 1867, that when he was employed in sending out 
emigrants from Ireland in 1840, he found that " a large portion of the 
Irish people were living on a kind of potato called ' lumpers,' which 
were so inferior in quality that even pigs could not fatten on them." — 
Transactions, p. 670. 



56 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

progression in working power as the diet becomes more 
ample and nutritions. 

Now this principle, if I have correctly stated it, as to 
tlie economical relation between food and laboring force, 
becomes of validity not only to explain in part the great 
differences in industrial efficiency which we have seen to 
exist among bodies of laborers, but also to show how, in cases 
where the subsistence of the laborer is below the economi- 
cal maximum, a rise of wages may take place without a 
loss to profits. 

That a large portion of the wage-laboring class are 
kept below the economical limit of subsistence there can 
be no doubt. " To-day, in the west of England," says 
Prof. Fawcett, " it is impossible for an agricultural laborer 
to eat meat more than once a week.'" Of the Devon peas- 
ant Canon Girdlestone writes : " The laborer breakfasts on 
teakettle broth — hot water poured on bread and flavored 
with onions ; — dines on bread and hard cheese at 26?. a 
pound, with cider very washy and sour ; and sups on pota- 
toes or cabbage greased with a tiny bit of fat bacon. He 
seldom more than sees or smells butcher'snieat.'" Little 
wonder is it that the Devon laborer is a different sort of 
animal from the Lincoln or Lothian laborer. No Devon 
farmer would doubt that it was bad economy to keep his 
cattle on a low, unnutritious diet. No reputable Devon 



' Pol. Econ.,p. 471. Lord Brabazon, in his report (p. 54) on the 
condition of the industrial classes of France, 1873, cites the opinion 
of Dr. Cenveilhier that the French population are, as a rule, insuffi- 
iiently nourished. " Many a French factory hand never has any thing 
better for his breakfast than a large slice of common sour bread, 
rubbed over with an onion so as to give it a flavor." (Lord Brabazon, 
J). 53.) Mr. Locock vv^rites from the Netherlands (Report of 1870, p. 
19): "Meat is rarely tasted by the working classes in Holland. It 
'forms no part of the bill of fare either for the man or his family." 
From Belgium Mr. Pakenham reports : " Very many have for their 
entire subsistence but potatoes with a little grease, brown or black 
bread, often bad, and for their drink a tincture of chickory." (Re- 
ports of 1871, p. 30.) 

^ Heath's English Peasantry, p. 100. 



UNDERFED LABOR. 57 

farmer would reason that, as he was but just able now to 
make a livmg profit, he would be rumed, for good and for 
all, were he to give his horses enough to keep them in 
good condition for work. And if one were found so nig- 
gardly and so foolish as to act and talk thus, his neighbors 
at least would tell him that the very reason why he made 
such bare profits now was that he starved his stock, and 
that with better feeding they would better earn their 
keep.' Yet the farmers of the west of England, almost as 
a body, when they had to meet the demands of their 
laborers for increase of wages in 1873 and in 1874, under 
the instigation of the Agricultural Union, declared that they 
would be ruined if they paid higher wages ; and there are 
not wanting economists of reputation to corroborate them,' 
and assert that it is " physically impossible '" that wages 
should be advanced without impairing profits. If there 
is any physical impossibility in the case, it is that the 
wretched peasants could be better fed without adding to 
the value of their labor to their employers. 

The revelations of the Poor-Law Commission of 1833 
respecting the comparative subsistence of the soldier, the 
agricultural laborer, and the pauper were very striking. 
The soldier, who had active duties and needed to be kept 
in at least tolerable physical condition, received a ration of 
168 oz., the able-bodied pauper received 151 oz., while the 
independent laborer, sole survi^dng representative of the 
yeomanry of Crecy and Agincourt, received 122 oz. per 
week. ]^ow it goes without saying that when the day 
laborer, toiling from morning till night in the fields, re- 
ceives a smaller amount of nourishment than the sense of 
public decency will allow to be given to paupers, that 

' Sir Joseph Wliitwortli is reported to have said that he could not 
afford to work a horse in his establishment which ate less than 18 lbs. 
of oats a day. 

^ " It is physically impossible that any permanent rise in wages should 
take place without corresponding diminution of profits." — H. Fawcett, 
Pol. Econ.,p. 264. 



58 THE WAOES QUESTION. 

laborer is underfed, in the sense that he must and will un- 
derwork. 

To avoid multiplying titles, I will in this connection 
mention clothing as in most climates a condition of effi- 
ciency in production. A portion, in some countries a 
large portion, of the food taken into the stomach goes to 
support the necessary warmth of the body. Clothing goes 
to the same object. Within certain limits, it is a matter of 
indifference whether you keep up the temperature of the 
body by putting food into a man or clothing on to him. 
As Mr Peshine Smith has said, " A sheet-iron jacket put 
around the boiler prevents the waste of heat in the one 
case, just as a woollen jacket about the body of the laborer 
does in the other.'" Here, again, there is an econo- 
mical maximum beyond which expenditure will not be 
justified by the return ; but here, again, it can not be 
doubted that large classes of laborers suffer a great loss of 
industrial efficiency from the want of adequate clothing. 
Prof. Fawcett quotes' the poor-law inspectors as stating 
that one fifth in number of the population are insufficient- 
ly clothed. Insufficiency of clothing means, of course, fee- 
bleness of working and excessive sickness and mortality. 

But I may be here called to meet an objection to my 
statements under this head, based on the assumed sufficien- 
cy of the sense of self-interest in employers. How, it may 
be asked, do you account for the failure of employers to 
])ay wages which will allow their laborers a more liberal 
sustenance, if indeed it is for their owm" advantage to do 
so? 

In the first place, I challenge the assumption which un- 
derlies the orthodox doctrine of wages, namely, the suf- 
ficiency of the sense of self-interest. Mankind, always 



• Pol. Econ. , p. 107. 

* Economical Position of the Br. Laborer, p. 231, note. 



UNDERFED LABOB. 59 

less than wise, and too often foolisli to tlie point of stupidi- 
ty, on tlie one side, and of fanaticism, on the otlier, wheth- 
er in government, in domestic life, in the care of their 
bodies, or in the care of their souls, do not suddenly be- 
come wise in industrial concerns. The argument for keep- 
ing a laborer well that he may work well applies with 
equal force to the maintenance of a slave. Yet we know, 
by a mass of revolting testimony, that in all countries 
avarice, the consuming lust of immediate gain, a passion 
which stands in the way of a true and enlarged view of 
self-interest and works unceasing despite to self-interest, 
has always' despoiled the slave of a part of the food and 
clothing necessary to his highest efficiency as a laborer. 
The same argument would apply with ecpial force to the 
care of livestock. Yet it is the hardest thing in the world 
to bring a body of farmers np to the conviction, and hold 
them there steadily, that it pays to feed cattle well and treat 
them well. England, what with unending fairs and pre- 
miums,^ with royal and noble patronage and ensamj^le, and 
with a very limited proprietorship which it might be sup- 
posed could be more easily kept informed as to the real 
economy of agriculture — England, I say, has managed to 
create a public sentiment which keeps her farmers reasona- 
bly np to the standard in this matter of the care of stock ; 

^ Where slaves were kept and worked only for purposes of gain. 
Where slavery was a political and social institution, as in the Middle 
States of the American Union, something of grace and kindliness 
might come to climb up about it. 

^ I have never chanced to hear of any premiums offered in Devon or 
Dorset for the fattest and sleekest, or the most manly and athletic 
" team" of agricultural laborers, though there have been, all honor for 
it ! instances of prizes given for " model cottages." " Comment ! Vos 
cultivateurs consacrent des sommes considerables pour couvrir leurs 
champs d'engrais, vos industriels ne negligent aucun soin, ne reculent 
devant aucuue depense pour assurer et faciliter le jeu de leurs ma- 
chines ; et vous, vous negligez de cultiver votre champ le plus fertile, 
de graisser et? de soigner votre machine la plus precieuse, votre ma- 
chine mere, de laquelle toutes les autres dependent, puisqu'elles en 
sont sorties." — Blanqui (aine) Cours d'feconomie Industrielle, ii. 352. 



60 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

yet even in England the exceptions are not few ; while, 
the world over, the rule is niggardliness of expenditure 
working deep and lasting prejudice to production. 

I might thus abundantly shelter myself behind the anal- 
ogous cases which have been cited, where true self-interest 
is most conspicuously sacriticed to greed.' But another 
reason appears in the.case of the wage-laborer. It is that 
the employer has none of that security which the owner 
of stock or the master of slaves possesses, that what goes 
in food shall come back to him in work. A mail buying 
an underfed slave or an underfed ox knows that when he 
has brought his property into good condition, the advan- 
tage will be his ; but the free laborer when he Avaxes fat 
may, like Jeshurun, kick, and take himself off. There is 
no law yet which gives an employer compensation for 
" unexhausted improvements" in the person of his laborer. 
The employer therefore takes his risk, in respect to all 
subsistence which goes to build up bone and sinew in his 
workmen, that the added laboring power may be sold to a 
neighbor or carried away bodily to Australia. 

III. Another reason for differences in industrial efficien- 
cy is found in differing habits, whether of choice or neces- 
sity in their origin, respecting cleanliness of the person and 
purity of air and water. The iirst great prison reformer 
shocked the civilized world with the revelations which he 



' Doubtless race-characteristics have very much to do with the 
ability to subordinate greed to real interests, and to take a large view 
of economy. We should expect to find the Teutonic peoples surpass- 
ing all others in this respect ; the Slavonic peoples far to the rear. 
Mr. Consul Holmes, in his Report to the British Government on the 
Condition of the Industrial Classes of Bosnia in 1871, remarks that the 
Eastern Christians, like the Turks, " look far more to cheapness than 
excellence in what they j)urchase, and good workmanship and consci- 
entious labor is neither appreciated nor desired " (p. 763). Mr. Consul 
Palgrave makes a similar remark respecting the Anatolians (p. 732). 
" The very appreciation of good work," writes Sir P. Francis from Tur- 
key, " is, I believe, lost." — Report on the Condition of the Industrial 
Classes, 1873, p. 373. 



UNSANITARY AB0I>E8. -Gl 

made of the abodes of the convict classes. Yet, a disthi- 
guished sanitarian, often quoted in these pages, has said : 
" More filth, worse physical suffering and moral disorder 
than Ploward describes as affecting the prisoners, are to be 
found among the cellar population of the working people 
of Liverpool, Manchester, or Leeds, and in large portions 
of the metropolis.'" " Out of a population of 85,000 
householders," says Prof. Gairdner, speaking of Glasgow, / 
" 30,000 or 35,000 belong to a class who are most dan- 
gerous in a sanitary point of view."^ " Hovels, cellars, 
mere dark dens," says Inglis, in describing the city homes 
of Ireland in 1834, " damp, filthy, stagnant, unwholesome 
places, into which we should not in England put any do- 
mestic animal."^ But even in England and to-day Canon 
Girdlestone says of the homes of the peasants of Devon : 
" The cottages as a rule, are not fit to house pigs in."* / 
Of 309 cottages at Ramsbottom, near Bury, " one of the best 
districts in Lancashire," remarks Col. Sykes,"^ 13Y had but 
one bedroom each, the aggregate occupants being Y77 ; 172 
had two bedrooms each, the aggregate occupants being 
1223. Some of the families occupying a single bedroom 
consisted of from 8 to 13 individuals. At Bristol, out of 
6000 families reported on, 556 occupied part of a room 
only ; 2244 one room only ; the average number of persons 
to a family being 3.46. " One third of the population of 
Scotland in 1861," says Mr. Caird, " lived in houses of one 
room only ; another third in houses of two rooms only."'' 
The subject is not a pleasant one to pursue, but as none 
holds more important relations to the philosophy of wages 
than the one now under consideration, I must ask my 
readers to endure the following descriptions of human 
habitations taken from the Poor-Law Report of 1842. 



' Edwin Chadwick. Poor-Law Report, 1843, p. 312. 

^ Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1866, p. 737. 

'^ Journey Tliroughout Ireland, p. 379. 

* Heatli's Eiiglisli Peasantry, p. 100. 

= Statistical Journal, xiii. 47. " Stat. Journal, xxxii. 75. 



63 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

" Shepherd's Buildings consist of two rows of houses 
with a street seven yards wide between them ; each row 
consists of what are styled back and front houses ; that is, 
two houses placed back to back. There are no yards or 
out-conveniences ; the privies are in the centre of each 
row, about a yard wide ; over them there is part of a sleep- 
ing-room ; there is no ventilation in the bedrooms. Each 
house contains two rooms, namely, a house-place and sleep- 
ino--room above ; each room is about three yards wide and 
four long. In one of these houses there are nine persons 
belonging to one family, and the mother on the eve of her 
confinement. The cellars are let off as separate dwellings ; 
these are dark, damp, and very low, not more than six feet 
between the ceiling and floor. The street between the 
two rows is seven yards wide, in the centre of which is the 
common gutter, or, more properly, sink, into which all sorts 
of refuse are thrown." — Report, pp. 17, 18. 

This is a description of the cottages of a manufacturing 
village. The same report gives an account of the homes 
of the peasantry of Durham, " built of rubble or unhewn 
stone, loosely cemented." " The chimneys have lost half 
their original height, and lean on the roof with fearful 
gravitation. The rafters are evidently rotten and displaced, 
and the thatch, yawning to admit the wind and wet in 
some parts, and in all parts utterly unfit for its original 
purpose of giving protection from the weather, looks more 
like the top of a dunghill than a cottage. Such is I he ex- 
terior ; and when the hind comes to take possession, lie 
finds it no better than a shed. The wet, if it happens to 

rain, is making a puddle on the earth floor They 

have no byre for their cows, nor sties for their pigs ; no 
pumps or wells ; nothing to promote cleanliness or comfort. 
The average size of these sheds is about 24 by 16. They 
are dark and unwholesome ; the windows do not open, 
and many of them are not larger than 20 inches by 16 ; 
and into this place are crowded 8, 10, or even 12 persons." 
— Eeport, pp. 22, 23. 



UNSANITARY ABODES. 



63 



The climax of possible horror would seem to be reached 
in the description of the wjnds of Eclinbm^gh ; but I will 
not offend the reader's sensibilities by quoting from it. It 
will perhaps be quite as effective to compare the experi- 
ence of sickness in these dens of abomination with that 
of other localities. The following table shows the average 
nmnber of days' sickness suffered in a year by a family in 
the wynds in comparison (1) with the expei'ience of the 
Benefit Societies in Scotland, and (2) with the experience 
of places under sanitary measures. 



Age. 


Benefit Societies. 


Under Sanitary- 
Measures. 


The Wynds. 


Man, 40 


6.9 

4.2 
0.3 


3.75 
2.10 
0.17 


15 1 


Woman, 30 


11 ' 


Child, 15 


3.5 


! 11.3 


5.02 


39.6 



So much for the places ^diere men live during the half 
of the day devoted to sleep and refreshment. In the 
places where they labor there is not such a dreary monotony 
of squalor and misery. ISTeither indifference nor malignity 
even, on the part of employers could succeed in placing the 
great majority of workingmen so wretchedly. The first 
occupation of man still employs by far vhe greater part of 
the race, and for them sunlight and air are provided by the 
indefeasible bounty of nature. If the Durham and Devon 
hind does not " sleep all night in Elysium," he at least 
" sweats all day in the eye of Phoebus." ISTor is it only 
the agriculturist who pursues his occupation in the open 
air. In no small proportion of the mechanical trades either 
the conditions of the work do not allow the laborer to be 
shut in between walls, or the expense of enclosure out- 
weighs its advantages, a,nd the trade, though it might be 
even better prosecuted under cover, is, in fact, carried on 
out-doors. After all deductions, however, there remain a 
melancholy multitude who are called to breathe the foul 



64 rUE WAGES QUESTION. 

air of mines ; to labor in the stilling atmosphere of 
mills and factories, ^ hazy" or •• cloiuly" with particles 
irritating to the Inngs or poisonous to the blood, and to 
pant through the houre of work in " sweating dens" like 
those which the indignant eloquence of Kingslev' has made 
so painfully familiar to his English and American readei's, 
though all verbal description must fall short of the shock- 
ing i-eality." 

I have not dwelt thus at length upon descriptions of 
human habitations imtit for cattle or for swine, for the 
purpose of harrowing the feelings of my readers, or even 
with a view to excite compassion for the condition of the 
working classes. My single object has been to atfoixl illus- 
tration of the intluence of the cause we are now consider- 
ing, upon the ethciency of labor. A great part, if not the 
great majority, of the lalx)i"ei"s of the world ai-e toniay 
housed thus miserably ; micounted millions woi-se. Even 
of those whose lot is more fortmiate but a very small pro- 
portion, in any of the older coimtries, have in their kxlging 
the light and air which the least exacting hygiene declai'es 
to be essential to the harmonious development an<l adeipiate 
sustentation of the bodily powei-s. 

It is in abodes such as have been described that children 
grow to maturity and get the size and stivngth which are 
to determine their quality as workers. It is in abodes like 
these that laboring men have to seek repose and refresh- 
ment after the complete exhaustion of a hard day's work ; 
that they breathe the air which is to oxydize their bkxHi, and 
eat and undertake to digest the f(.K»d on which to-mornnv's 
work is to be done. AYliat wonder that children grow 
up stunted and weazen and deformed ; that the bUxxi of 
manhood becomes foul and lethargic, the nerves unstrung, 
the sisrht, on which depends much of the use of all the 



1 In his Alton Locke. 

* See Report Poor-Law Commission, 1S49, pp. 9S-104. 



IMPURITY OF WATER. 65 

other powers, weakened or distorted, and tlie whole tone 
of life' and of labor depressed and intermittent ? 

I have spoken of the dwellings too often inhabited by 
tlie laboring classss, and of the air which they have to 
breathe. As to the water they have to drink, it will 
suffice here to cite the results of an inspection and chemi- 
cal analysis of 140 specimens of drinking-water made in a 
large number of the cities and towns of Scotland by Dr. 
Stevenson Macadam :^ 

I*^umber grossly contaminated by sewage matter 

and decidedly unwholesome 104 

I^uml^er less contaminated and less unwholesome. ... 32 

Number tinned with sewao^e matter 4 

Number free from all contamination 

Total examined 140 

ly. The general intelligence of the laborer is a factor 
of his industrial efficiency. This proposition is too well 
established and too familiar to need extended illustration. 
The intelligent laborer is more useful not merely .because 
he knows how to apply'' his bodily force in his work with 
the greatest effect, but also because 

{a) lie requires a shorter apprenticeship and less techni- 

' How, indeed, do human beings live at all under sucli circum- 
stances ? Fresh and vigorous constitutions would go off at a gallop in 
some form of active disease, under such ever-present infection. The 
only reason why the very miserable live under it is because they have 
taken on a lower type of being, which is compatible with existence in 
such surroundings but altogether incompatible with great exertions. 
" Their freedom from specific evil is only evidence that they have sub- 
sided into a coarser and lower nature. The florid, strong-pulsed man, 
fresh from a wholesome country dwelling, would die right off when 
subjected to the deficient sanitary conditions which are innocuous to the 
lower physical development of the very poor vegetating in the pur- 
lieus of large towns or in mud-built country cottages." — Charles Lam- 
port, Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1870, p. 532. 

' Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1867, p. 561. 

' " Le travail suppose 1. I'intelligence qui conceit et 2. le main qui 
execute." — Batbie. 



6 J THE WAGES QUESTION. 

(m1 iustnK'ti<in. " A reeruit," says Prof. Rogers, " who 
knows how to read and write can learn his drill in half the 
time in which a totally ignorant person can."' 

{J)) lie reqnircs far less snperinteiideiice. Superintend- 
ence is always costly. If an overseer is required for every 
ten men engaged on a piece of work, the product must pay 
for the time and labor, not of ton men but of eleven ; and 
if the overseer obtains, as be most likely will, twice the 
wages of a common laborer, then the product must pay for 
the time aiul labor of twelve. The employer would just 
as soon pay his hands 20 per cent more if he coidd dispense 
with the overseer. 

{c) He is far less wasteful of material. Even in agri- 
culture no product can be obtained from labor without the 
sacrilice of pre-existing wealth. A bushel of wheat must 
be sown for every six or eight bushels to be reaped, and 
with it must be buried large cpiantities of costly manures. 
But in mechanical industry it often happens that the value 
of the materials used in a manufacture, being themselves 
the result of antecedent processes, far exceeds the value 
proposed to be added by labor. Thus, in the I'^nited States 
in 1870. we tind a group of industries employing 101,504 
hands, where the value of the materials was $707,361,378, 
while oidy S^^l<7o-l,8ir) were paid in wages." Xow, waste is 
inevitable in all handling of material. It is merely a ques- 
tion of more or less ; and in this respect the range between 
ignorant and intelligent labor is very great. By waste is 
not meant alone tbe total destruction of material, but its 
impainnent in any degree so that the linisbed product 
takes a lower commercial value. So great are the possi- 
bilities of loss from this soiu'ce that in all the higher branches 
of productii>n unintelligent labor is not regarded as worth 
having at any price however low. 

{il) He can use delicate and intricate machinery. 



' Pol. Econ., p. 117. 

^ Ninth Census of the United States, 1870. Industry and Wealth. 

i\ 080 



INTELLIGENCE IN LABOR. 67 

The cost of repairing and replacing this with ignorant 
labor very soon eats up the profits of production, and not 
unfrequently the effect is to practically prohibit the use of 
all but the coarsest tools. " Experienced mechanicians 
assert that, notwithstanding the progress of machinery in 
agriculture, there is probably as much sound practical 
labor-saving invention and machinery unused as there is 
used ; and that it is unused solely in consequence of the 
ignorance and incompetency of the workpeople.'" 

We have some striking testimony on this point from Asia 
and Eastern Europe. Wheeler, in his "Cotton Cultivation," 
states that the women of India were accustomed to earn 
with the native " churka" from three farthings to a little 
over a penny a day, while with the Manchester cotton-gin 
they could have earned with ease three pence and possibly 
four and a half pence.^ And H. B. M, Consul Stuart re- 
ports concerning the laborers of Epirus ; " In dealing with 
weights and resistance they use direct physical force / the 
aids of the pulley or windlass are but seldom called in, 
while handbarrows and wheelbarrows are seen only on 
rare occasions. It is a singular fact that during the fifty 
years of British occupation in the Ionian Islands, not a 
single mechanical improvement crossed from Corfu to 
Epirus, if I may except the screw and the buckle, which 
foimd their way here some few years ago, and are now in 
limited use.'" 

Y. Still another reason for the large differences which 
exist in respect to industrial efficiency is found in technical 
education and industrial environment. Perhaps no one of 
the causes already mentioned contributes more to this re- 
sult. Even more, I am disposed to believe, than stock and 
breeding, even more than national diet, do the inherited 
instincts of a people in respect to labor, and their habits and 
methods of work, consciously or unconsciously acquired. 



' Hearn's Plutology, p. 59. ^ P. 173. 

' Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1871 , p. 775, 



68 THE WAGES qUESTI02{. 

the espp'd'M\(\\\\Q doniiiiatiii^ ideas of the national indnstiy, 
determine the degree of etHcieney wliich will be reached 
in the production of any country. Ilandiness, aptness, and 
fertility of resource become congenital ; in some conunu- 
nities the child is brought into the world half an artisan. 
Then, too, he becomes a better workman simply by reason 
of being accustomed, through the years of his own inability 
to labor, to see tools used with address, and through 
watching the alert movement, the prompt co-operation,' 
the precise manipulation, of bodies of workmen. The 
l)etter part of industrial as of every other kind of educa- 
tion is unconsciously obtained. And when the boy is 
himself apprenticed to a trade, or sets himself at work, he 
finds all about him a thorough and minute organization of 
labor which conduces to the highest production ; he has 
examples on every side to imitate ; if he encounters special 
obstacles, he has only to stop, or hardly even to stop, to see 
some older hand deal with the same ; if he needs help, it is 
already at his elbow ; and, above all, he comes under im- 
pulses and incitements to exertion and to the exercise of 
thoughtfulness and ingenuity, Avhich are as powerful and 
imremitting as the impulses and incitements which a re- 
cruit experiences in a crack regiment from the moment lie 
dons the uniform. 

Very striking testimony is borne in many official reports 
to the differences in the industrial spirit of the different 
nations. Mr. Edwin Rose testified before the Factory 
Commission to the great superiority of the English laborer 
over his Continental rival in his habits of close and continu- 
ous application ; and at a subsequent inquiry Mr. Thomp- 
son, of Clitheroe, spoke from a vast personal observation 

* In a debate in tlie House of Lords in ISTo, Earl Fortescue stated 
that Sir Joseph Wliitworth, the eminent manufacturer of arms, had ex- 
pressed the opinion that " a workman who had acquired the habit of 
moving promptly at the word of command was worth on the average 
1lS. 6(7. a week more than a man of equal manual dexterity who had 
not acquired the habit." — The Times. 



INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT. 69 

of the " enduring, nntiring, savage industry" of the Eng- 
lish workman. " The labor of Alsace," he says, " the 
best and cheapest in France, is dearer than the labor of 
Lancashire." That was forty years ago. To-day the 
esprit and the technique of industry on the Continent are 
perhaps advanced somewhat beyond where England was in 
1835 ; but the English are looking back with not a little 
wonder at their own want of force and drive industrially, 
in the time of which Mi/ Thompson speaks. Thus we find 
Dr. Bridges and Mr. Holmes, in their report to the Local 
Government Board of 1873, writing of the Scotch flax 
district as follows : 

" We were struck by the easy and almost leisurely way 
in which labor was carried on in the spinning-rooms as 
compared with the unremitting application of the Lanca- 
shire operatives. All the spinners had seats pro^dded for 
them, of which a large nmnber availed themselves. The 
nmnber of spindles assigned to each was small, varying from 
50 to 80 ;^ and the niunber of ends breaking was in no 
case such as to necessitate constant movement. Some of 
the women were knitting, and all appeared much at their 
ease. Li fact, the work very much resembled the picture 
frecpiently drawn to us, whether truly or otherwise, of 
Lmicashire weaving and spinning as it was 20 cr 30 years 
agoP"" 

]N^ow it is needless to say that some of this heightened 

' The proportion of looms to weavers in England as contrasted with 
the proportion which obtains in Ireland and Scotland is significant in 
the same regard. 

Looms in Cotton Mfr. Weavers. 

England, . . 165,033 . . . 57,555 

Scotland, . . 23,621 . . . 13,114 

Ireland, . , 3,373 . . . 1,864 



191,025 71,533 

Nearly three looms to 1 weaver in England ; not quite 3 looms in 
Scotland and Ireland. (Report, j). 16.) 
^ Report, p. 37. 



v/ 



70 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

activity is of bad and not of good. Undoubtedly it involves 
in some degree overwoi'k and the undue wear and tear of 
the muscular and the nervous system. But by no means 
all, or probably the greater part, comes to this. It is because 
manual dexterity and visual accuracy have been developed 
to a high point in one generation and bred into the next 
generation ; because habits of subordination and co-operation 
have become instinctive ; because organization and discipline 
have been brought nearly to perfection, that mechanical 
labor in England is so much more effective than on the Conti- 
nent. Xor is keen, persistent activity necessarily injurious. 
Dawdling and loafing over one's work are not beneficial to 
health. Man was made for lal)or, for energetic, enthusi- 
astic labor, and within certain limits, not narrow ones, in- 
dustry brings rewards sanitary as well as economical. 

I have spoken of the faculty of organization' as account- 
ing for much of the difference in the efficiency of labor 
between England and France, for exam]ile. I beg to insist 
on this with reference to the point of the Avear and tear 
of the laboring force. Those who are familiar with the 
movements of armies know that a body of troops may be 
marched thirty miles in a day if kept in a steady, ecpiable 
motion, wnth measured periods of rest, and not be brought 
into camp, at night, so tired as another body of troops that 
have come only half the distance, but have been fretted and 
worried, now delaved and now crowded forward, everv 



' The famous Committee of tlie House of Commons on tlie Exporta- 
tion of Tools and Madiiueiy dwelt on the " want of arrangement in 
foreign manufactories," as an important reason for the superior cheap- 
ness of production in England. 

In the evidence given before them is found (p. 363) the following 
liighly -suggestive remark : " A cotton manufacturer who left Manches- 
ter seven years ago would be driven out of the market by the men 
who are now living in it, provided his knowledge had not kept pace 
with those who have been during that time constantly profiting by the 
progressive impi'ovenients that have taken place in that period. This 
progressive knowledge and experience is our great power and advan- 
tage." 



ORGANIZATION IN INDUSTRY. 71 

portion of the column balked by turns, and kept waiting 
for long pariods in that most wearing expectation of instant 
movement, ^ow, this is not an extreme contrast as regards 
military movements ; nor need any thing be taken from its 
extent when we come to apply it to the operations of in- 
dustry. In an establishment where each person has his 
place and perfectly knows his duty, where work never 
chokes its channels and never runs low, where nothing ever 
comes out wrong end foremost, where there is no fretting 
or chafing, where there are no blunders and no catastrophes, 
where there is no clamor and no fuss, a pace may bs main- 
tained which would kill outright the operatives of a noisy, 
ill-disciplined, badly-organized shop. For, as was said in 
opening this subject of the effisiency of labor, there is in 
all industry a positive and a negative element. Waste is 
insepariible from work ; but the proportions in which the 
two shall appear may be made to vary greatly. It is only 
when we see a perfectly -trained operative performing his 
task that we realize how much of what the undisciplined 
and ignorant call their work is merely waste ; how little 
of their expenditure of muscular and nervous force really 
goes to the object ; how much of it is aside from, or in 
opposition to, that object. And the remark applies not 
alone to the exertions of the individual but, in a still higher 
degree, to the operations of bodies of men. 

" It is not," says Mr. Laing, " the expertness, dispatch, 
and skill of the operative himself that are concerned in the 
prodigious amount of his production in a given time, but 
the laborer who wheels coals to his fire, the girl who makes 
ready his breakfast, the whole population, in short, from 
the pot-boy who brings his beer, to the banker who keeps 
his employer's cash, are in fact working to his hand with 
the same quickness and punctuality that he works with 
himself.'" 

We have some interesting instances in proof that such 

' Notes of a Traveller, p. 390. 



73 TUB WAOES QUESTION. 

industrial superiority as has been described is not due alone 
to difterent'e? of stojk and breeding- or of general intelli- 
genc'o, but tliat strangers placed within the same industrial 
environment, and afforded opportunities of like technical 
education, tend steadily, and it may be rapidly, to advance 
towards tiie eihciency of the native laborer. Thus Mr. 
Brassey, after dwelling on the advantages of carrying out 
English navvies, at vast expense, even to Canada or to 
(Queensland, adds signiticantly : '' The superiority of the 
English workniou was most conspicuous when they iii-st 
connnenced work in a country in which no railways had 
been previously constructed."' 

The Commissioners (1867) on the Employment of Women 
and Children in Agriculture, in their second report," 1869, 
give the I'csults of a very considerable experiment in drain- 
ing in Northumberland, extended over a series of years, in 
which large numbei"S both of English and Irish were em- 
ployed, from which it appears that •" whereas the English 
beginner earns an average of four shillings a week more 
than the Irish beginner, better food and about ten years' 
]u'actice reduce the dilference to 1."?. -tc/." And Mr. 
Chadwii'k states* "that agricultural laborers who have 
joined gangs of navvies and have been drilled, Avitli them, 
into their energetic piece-work habits, on returning to farm 
labor will do their tasks of work in half the time of the 
common day-laborers. Examples," he adds, " of the high- 
est order of agricultural })iece-work, with increased wages 
closely approaching manufacturing wages, are presented in 
tlie niarket-gaixien culture near the metropolis." 

YI. The last I'eason which I shall assign f(^r the superior 
etficiencv of individual laborers, classes of laborers, or na- 
tions of laborers, is cheerfulness and hopefulness in labor, 
growing out of self-respect and social ambition and the 
laborer's personal interest in the result of his work. 



' Work and Wiiiros, p. 117. - P. 104. 

^ Statistical Journal, xxviii., p. 307. 



INEFFICIENCY OF SLAVE LABOR. 73 

I have spoken of causes which affect the laborer's bone 
and sinew, liis physical integrity and his muscular activity. 

I have spoken also of causes which affect his intellectual 
qualification for his work, the intelligence which shall di- 
rect his bodily powers to the end of production. The 
causes now in view are moral, affecting the will. 

After all, it is in the moral elements of industry that we 
find the most potent cause of differences in efficiency. If 
it constitutes one a sentimentalist to recognize the power of 
sentiment in human action, whether in politics or in econo- 
mics, the writer gladly accepts the appellation. Cheerful- 
ness and hopefulness in the laborer are the spring of exer- 
tions in comparison with which the brute strength of the 
slave or the eye-server is but weakness. 

The inferiority of the labor of the slave' to that of the 
freeman, even of the lowest industrial grade, is proverbial. 
Slave labor is always and everywhere ineffective and waste- 
ful because it has not its reward.^ ISTo matter how com- 
plete the authority of the master over the person and, the 
life, he cannot command all the faculties of his slave. The 
slave may be made to work, but he can not be made to 
think ; he may be made to work, but he can not be kept 
from waste ; to work, indeed, but not with energy. En- 
ergy is not to be commanded, it must be called forth by 
hope, ambition, and aspiration. The whij) only stimulates 
the fiesh on which it is laid. It does not reach the parts 
of the man where lie the springs of action. JSTo brutality 
of ride can evoke even the whole physical power of a hu- 
man being. The man himself, even if he would, can not 

' Prof. Cairnes, in liis able work on " Tlie Slave Power," sums up the 
economical defects of slave labor under three heads : " It is given re- 
luctantly ; it is unskilful ; it is wanting in versatility." (P. 44.) 

"^ " The experience of all ages and nations, I believe, demonstrates 
that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their 
maintenance, is, in the end, the dearest of any. A person who can 
acquire no property can have no other interest but to eat as much and 
lo labor as little as possible." — Adam Smith, Wealth ol Nations, i. SOD, 

ygi. 



74 THE WAGES QIESTIOX. 

ivmloi' liis oAvu best servii'O unless some j^assion of the 
liiiihor iiatuiv, lovo, iinititiulo, orlio]>o,be luvakoned. Tlio 
norwnis foivo. Avluch is to tlio musi.'ul:iv A\-hat the steam is 
to the parts of the eno-iue, is oiilv in a small deu'ree uiuler 
the control of the eonseions will. It is a little tire onlv 
that fear kindles, and it is a little f(.>ree onlv that is gene- 
rated thereby to move the frame. I speak of fear alone, 
that is, mere fear of evil. When love of life and home 
and friends are present and i^ive meaning to fear, the 
utmost energies may be evoked ; but not by fear alone, 
which is, the rather, paralyzing in its effect. 

Were it not for this impotence of the lash, the nations 
would either not have risen from the once almost univei"sal 
condition of servitude, or would have risen far more slowly. 
The slave has always been able to make it for his master's 
interest to sell him freedom, lie could always aifiu-d to 
pay uu>re than could be uiade out of him. This is a well- 
recognized principle, and hence the former slave States of 
tlie American ITnion, building their political and social in- 
stitutions on slavery as the corner-stone, had to forbid en- 
tirely or to put under serious disabilities the exercise of 
mamnnission. Even with the little the brutalized black 
could apinvhend of the privileges of freedom, even with 
his feeble hopes and aspinitions, c»>ndenmed, as he kneAv, 
by his Cidor to peipetual exclusion, he could ah\ays buy 
himself if permitted. This unprotitableness of slave or 
bond labor' has prepared the way for those great changes, 
geueudly. it is true, effected innnediately under the pressure 
(f political necessities,^ which have tnmsformed whole pop- 
ulations of slaves or serfs into nations <.>f freemen. 



' Mr. Turnbull. in his work on Austria. pj\ys : " A liirire R^homiau 
pn^priotor. wlio with hi:* brv>thors: wuntod on thoir estates IS.OlH) sulv 
jects.has frtniuently obsorvtni to nie that he fonnd it usually more 
Hd\-anlaireous to aeeopt even a very small |>art of the lejnxl ct.>mmuta- 
tiou-money, and to hire labor fnnu others, than to take it in kind from 
those who were Ix^und to yield it." 

* Instance the action of the nobles of llansrarv, at the outbreak of 



HOPEFULNESS IN LABOR. ,75 

But great as is the superiority, arising from this cause 
alone, of free over serf or slave labor, the diiference is yet 
not so great as exists between grades of free labor, as cheer- 
fulness and hopefulness in labor, due to self-respect and 
social ambition, are found, in greater or in less degree, 
animating classes and communities of laborers. 

It is in the proprietor of land under erj[ual laws that we 
find the moral qualities which are the incentive of industry 
most highly developed. Arthur Young's saying has be- 
come proverbial : " Give a man the secure possession of a 
bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden ;'" as also 
his other saying, " The magic of property turns sand into ^ 
gold.'" The energy which fear and pain can not command, 
joy and hope call forth in its utmost possibilities. The 
man not only will, he can. The waste of muscular force 
is perhaps not half as great in toil which is taken up freely 
and gladly. Nervous exhaustion comes late and comes 
slowly when the laborer sees his reward manifestly grow- 
ing before his eyes. 

It is the fulness and the directness of this relation of 
labor to its reward which, without bell or whip, drives the 
peasant proprietor afield, and, 

" From the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb," 

the revolution of 1848, in transmuting the urbarial tenure of lands into 
unrestricted tenure by freehold. " By this great and voluntary con- 
cession," says Alison, " the property of 500,000 families, consisting of 
little estates from 30 to GO acres each, and comprehending nearly half 
a kingdom, was at once converted from a feudal tenure, burdened witli 
numerous duties, into absolute property." — History of Europe, xxii. 
613. 

' " An activity has been here that has swept away all difficulties 
before it, and has clothed the very rocks with verdure. It would be a 
disgrace to common-sense to ask the cause : the enjoyment of proper- 
ty must have done it. Give a man the secure possession of a bleak r 
rock, and he will turn it into a garden ; give hiin a nine years 
lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert." — Travels in 
France, Pinkerton, iv. 122. 

^ How the magic of property turns sand into mold, a truer source of 
wealth than placers or auriferous quartz, has been shown in the mari- 
time districts of Belgium. 



70 77/ A' ]r.lOV:s Ql'KSTJOX. 

cinpU>vs his cvorv omM'u'v, iliivrtoil by all liis iiitolligouoe, 
towanls the lUMxinunu of ]>roihu'ti(Ui \\'\\\\ the mlnimnm of 
K)ss and \\;istc\ Thus it is tliat Mr. lni;lis dcsi'rihos tho 
jH>as;intrv o( Zurich : 

** AVhiMi I used to t»pen m_v easement, hetween four and 
live in the niorninii;-, to Kjok ()ut upon the lake and the dis- 
tant Alps, 1 saw tiie laht>ivr in the tields ; and when I iv- 
tnrneil from an oveninu- walk, lono- after simset, as late 
perhaps as half past eiii'ht. there \\as the laborer, nu>winij; 
his grass or tvinn' up his vines." 

" Mo men in the world," savs Prof, llearn, " exhibit a 
greater ilegree of habitual euergv than the Seottish subjeets 
t>f Queen N'ietoria ; vet when her ii'reat-grandfather was 
lioir to the thri>ne. the Seottish pei>ple were eonspieuous 
for their ineorrigible indi>lenee. The la/y Seoteli were iu 
the last eentiu-v as notorious as the la/.v Irish' o( a later dav. 
In K>th eountries a like etVeet was produeed bv a like 
eaiise."' 

When we turn frvMU the ]n"oprietor of land to the hired 
laborer, we note at onee a loss of energy. In the eonstitu- 
tii>n of things it ean not be otherwise. When the relation 
of labor to its reward beeomes indireet and eoutingont, 
and the workman finds that the ditferenee, to himself, of 
vorv faithful or but little faithfid serviee is only to be ex- 
}>orioneed in a renu>te and roundabout way, aeeording as 
the master s future ability to employ him may be in a dt^ 
give atfeeted thereby, his own present wages being fixed 
by oontraet, and seemv upon eomplianee with the formal 
iXHpiiivments of serviee ; or aeeoixling as his own re}>uta- 
tion fi>r ettteieney or inettieieney may lead to his being 
longer retained or earlier diseharged, in the event i>f a fu- 
ture i"etluetion of foive — I Siiv, w hen tlie i-elation of labor 



' Arthur Younsr »» 1T77 dosorilnni tho Irish as " hizy to nn oxivss at 
wt>rk. hut spiritedly active at phiy" vPiukerton. iii. 8?2. i Wlien the 
Irishman has a fair ohanco under tninal hiws, he imports all this ae- 
tivity into his work. 

■ Plutoloiry. p. 41. 



FAITHFULNESS IN WAGE LABOR. 77 

to it'4 reward Ijeeoirios tliiis indirect and contin_2;ent, tlie 
workman not only will not, he cannot, Ijeing man, laljor as 
lie would ]ab(n- for himself. ]L\'iin without the least M'ilful 
intention to shirk exertion or responsil)ility, thei'o will be, 
tliere must be, a falling off in enei'gy and in carefulness : a 
falling off wlfich will make a vast difference in production 
long before it is sufficiently a subject of consciousness on 
tlie part of the lal)orer himself to become " eye-service," or 
of observation on the part of the employer to lead to com- 
plaint. 

But the loss of energy and carefulness due to the making 
distant or doubtful the reward of extra exertion on the 
part of the workman, will be much greater with some than 
with others under precisely similar conditions, and will vary 
greatly, also, as conditions vary. Whether it be superiority 
in faith, in conscience, or in imagination, ^ that makes the 
difference, there are those who can work in another's 
cause almost as zealously and prudently as if it were in 
their own. Such men more clearly apprehend, however 
they come to do it, the indirect and remote rewards of zeal 
and fidelity, or, apprehending these no more strongly than 
others, they are yet better able to direct tlieir energies to 
an end, and control and keep under the appetites and im- 
j)ulses which make against a settled purpose. Some men, 
some races of men, are easily recognized as more genuine, 
honest, and heroic than others, and these differences in 
manly quality come out nowhere more conspicuously than 
in the dagrces of interest and zeal exhibited in hired labor. 



I have not chosen to introduce into the body of the fore- 
going discussion the effects of drunkenness and dishonesty 



* I will guard mysolf against a critic's sneer at the introduction of 
this word into a treatise on wages by citing Mr. Mill's remark, " It is 
very shallow, even in pure economics, to take no account of the influ- 
ence of imagination."— Pol. Econ., i. 393, 893. 



78 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

in reducing the efficiency of lalior. Throngliont all tliat 
lias l)eeu said the laborer has been assumed to be temper- 
ate and well-intentioned. Of the frightful waste of pro- 
ductive power, through both the diminution of work and 
the increase of waste, which results from the vice of 
drunkenness, so lamentably characterizing certain races, it 
can not be necessary to speak. More than all the festivals 
of the Greek or the Roman church, the worship of " Saint 
Monday'" reduces the current wages of la])or, while lea\'ing 
its ineffaceable marks on heart and brain and hand. The 
want of connnon honesty between man and man, though 
happily less frerpient than the indulgence of vicious app3- 
tites, works even deeper injury to industry where it pre- 
vails in any considerable degree. " A breach of trust 
among the stoneworkers of Septmoncel," says Lord Bra- 
bazon, in his report of 1872 on the condition of the indusr 
trial classes of France, " would 1)3 sufficient to cause the 
banishment of this rich industry from the mountains of the 
Jura to the workshops of Paris and Amsterdam ;"' and the 
same judicious reporter states that the abstraction of the 
silk given to the Lyons workmen to manufacture " has 
always weighed heavily on the trade of that city." " To 
meet this," says M. Beaulieu, in his Populations Ouvri^res, 
" the manufacturer has but one resource, the diminution 
of the rate of wages. Either the factory or workshop 
must be closed or %vages must be lowered. There is no 
middle course, and in either case the workman is the 
sufferer." It need not be said that the illicit gains thus 
obtained — sold as the plunder is surreptitiously, under 
penalty of the galleys — have afforded a very inadequate 



" " Almost invariably an nnemployed c^y in Belgium." (Report of 
Mr. Consul Grattan on the condition of the industrial classes, 1872, 
p. 19.) Much the same story comes from Norway and Sweden, Eng- 
land and Scotland, whose inhabitants we reckon among the noblest 
peoples of the world. 

'' P. 07. 



WAGES THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF INDUSTRY. 79 

compensation to the workmen for the loss which their dis- 
lionest^^ intiicted npou the trade. 

I can not better close this extended discnssion of the causes 
which contribute to the efficiency of labor than by intro- 
ducing two extracts, the first from Dr. Kane's work on the 
Industrial Resources of Ireland, in which he accounts very 
justly for the difference between the Irish and the English 
laborer of that period ; the second from Adam Smith's 
Wealth of ^Nations. Both are profoundly significant, and 
I ask the reader's careful consideration of them with refe- 
rence to the principles previously discussed, and also with 
reference to the doctrine of the wages fund, to be treated 
hereafter. 

" A wretched man," says Dr. Kane, " wdio can earn by 
his exertion but four or five shillings a week, on which to 
support his family and pay the rent of a sort of habitation, 
must be so ill-fed and depressed in mind that to work as 
a man should work is beyond his power. Hence there are 
often seen about employments in this country a number of 
hands double wdiat would be required to do the same work 
in the same time with British laborers, • • • When I 
say that the men thus employed at low wages do so much 
less real work, I do not mean that they intentionally idle, 
or that they reflect that^s they receive so little they should 
give little value ; on the contrary, they do their best honestly 
to earn their wages ; but, supplied only with the lowest de- 
scriptions of food, and perhaps in insufficient quantity, 
they have not the physical ability for labor, and being with- 
out any direct prospect of advancement, they are not ex- 
cited by that laudable ambition to any display of superior 
energy. If the same men are placed in circumstances 
where a field for increased exertion is opened to them, and 
they are made to understand, what at first they are rather 
' incredulous about, that they will ]-eceive the fall value of 
any increased labor they perform, they become new beings, 
the work they execute rises to the highest standard, and 
\\\ey earn as much money as the laborers of any othei' 



so TUB WACrh:s QUESTIOX. 

c'lMintrv. Wicjes arc no longer Iou\ hutla\)i' is not on that 
accou it ant/ (fcaiyr than it has h'.'/i /> 7"(>y'<'."' 

'* The libiMMl reward of l:ibi)r," <iysAdim Sniitlu' "as it 
cneouragos tho ]>ropagatii)n, so it eiUH>uragos the industry, of 
the eoniiiion people. The ((\r/<'s of lahar arv the etwoxraje- 
iwnt of indi(sfr(/, \y\\'K'h, like everv other hinuau cpialitv. 
improves in proportion to the eneouragenient it reeeives. 
A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the 
laborer, and the comfortable hope of bettering his condition 
and enditig his days perhaps in ease and plenty animates 
him to exert that strength to the ntmost. AVhere wages 
are high, accordingly, \ve shall always find the workmen 
more active, diligent, and expeditious than where they are 
low : in England, for example, than in Scotland ; in the 
neighborhood of groat towns than in remote country plaeos." 



^ Pp. 397, SOS. - Wealth of Xaiious. i. S6. 



CIIAPTEK ly. 

THE DEGRADxVTION OF LABOR. 

I USE the term, degradation of labor, here in the sense 
of the reduction of the laborer from a higher to a lower 
industrial grade. 

The constant imminence of this change, the smallness of 
the causes, often accidental in origin and temporary in du- 
ration, which may produce it, and the almost irreparable 
consequences of such a catastrophe, are not sufficiently at- 
tended to in discussions of wages. To the contrary, it is 
the self-protecting power of labor which is dwelt upon. It 
is shown how, if by any insidious cause, or from any sud- 
den disaster in trade or production, be the same local or 
general, industry is impaired and employment diminished, 
hibor immediately sets itself, by natural laws, to right itself, 
l)y withholding increase of population, or by migrating 
to more fortunate localities. 

The same, if labor be crowded down by the power of 
capital, or by unjust laws : through economical harmonies 
which have excited the admiring gratitude of many writers, 
the vindication of the laboring class is effected automati- 
cally and peacefully, without revolution and without ma- 
chinery. The excessive profits Avhich the employing class 
are thus enabled for a time to make, increase the capital of 
the community, and thus give enhanced employment to 
laborers, so that, in the end, it is quite as well as if the 
money had gone in wages instead of profits. Thus Prof. 
Perry says : " If capital gets a relatively too large reward. 



S2 • THE WAGES QUESTION. 

nothing can infernijH the temlvncy that labor shall get, iu 
c'onstHineiieo of that, a larger reward the next time. ... If 
capital takes an undue advantage of labor at any point, as 
niifortunately it sometimes does, somebody at some other 
point has, in eonsecpienee of that, a stronger desire to em- 
ploy laborers, and so the Avrong tenets to I'ight itself. This 
is tlie great eonservativo force in the relations oi capital to 
labor.''' 

Now, of the degrees of celerity and certainty witli wliich 
population docs, in fact, adapt itself to changes in the seats 
or iu the forms of industry, or assert itself against the en- 
croaclunents of the employing class or the outrages of leg- 
islation, I shall have occasion to s]u\dv with some fulness 
hereafter (Ohajiter XL). ]>ut I desire at the present time, 
iu close connection with our discussion of the causes which 
contribute to the ethciency of labor, to point out the conse- 
qnences of any failure or mulue delay on the part of popu- 
lation in thus resenting the loss of employment or the re- 
duction of wages. 

The trouble is, these changes which are to set labor 
right always )'equire time, and often a very long time. 
There is dano-er, great dano-er, that meanwhile men will 
simply drop di>wn iu the industrial and social scale, acce})t 
their lot, and adapt themselves to the newly -imposed con- 
ditions of life and labor.'^ If this most melancholy result 



* The Financier, Angust 1, 1874. 

" " Tliere is considerable evidence that the circnrustances of rhenofri- 
cnltural laborers in England have more ilnn once in our history sus- 
tained great permanent tleterioration from causes which operated by 
diminishinir tlie demand for labor, and which, if populati(m had exer- 
cised its power of self-adjustment in obedience to the previous standard 
of comfort, conUl only have had a temporary effect ; but, unhappily, the 
poverty in "which the chiss was plunged during a long series of years 
brought that previous standard into disuse, and the next generation, , 
growing up without having possessed those pristine comforts, multi- 
plied in turn without any attempt to retrieve them." — J. S. Mill, Pol. 
P>on. , i. 41. 

•Mr. Mill here explains the whole permanent effect upon the gr ninds 



THE DEGRADATION OF LABOR. 83 

take? place, then, it should be observed, the restorative 
changes which have heen spoken of need not he effected at 
all. All things settle to the new level ; industrial society 
goes on as before, except that there is a lower class of 
citizens and a lower class of laborers. There is thereafter 
no virtue at all, no tendency even, in strictly industrial 
forces or relations to make good that great loss. In a 
word, much of the reasoning of the schools and the books 
on this subject assumes that the laboring class will resent 
an industrial injury, and will either actively seek to right 
themselves, or will at least abide in their place without sur- 
render until the economical harmonies have time to bring 
about their retribution. But the human fact (so often to 
be distinguished from the economical assumption) is, there 
is a fatal facility in sul^mitting to industrial injuries which 
too often does not allow time for the operation of these 
beneficent principles of relief and restoration. The in- 
dustrial opportunity comes around again, it may be, but it 
does not find the same man it left : he is no longer capable 
of rendering the same service ; the wages he now receives 
are perhaps quite as much as he earns. 

Let us take successively the cases of a reduction of wages 
and of a failure of employment. Let it be supposed that 
a combination of employers seeking their own immediate 
interests, that is, to get labor as cheaply as possible, per- 
haps under some pressure brought on them by the state of 
the market, succeeds in effecting a reduction of the wages 
of common labor, in a given community, from ^1 to Y5 cents 
per day. If the $1 previously received lias allowed comforts 
and luxuries and left a margin for saving, and especially if 
intelligence and social ambition prevail in the community, 



of Malthus, overlooking' the equally important consideration tliat, 
without respect to the numbers of tlie laboring class, the efficiency of 
labor must have been seriously impaired by inadequate food and 
clothinpr, unhealthy dwellings, and, more than all, by the loss of hope- 
fulness, cheerfulness, and self-respect. 



84 THE WAGES QUESTIONS. 

tliis reduction "will probaMv bo resented in the sense tlr^t 
}H>pnl:itien Avill be rechieed bv niigration or by absti- 
nence from propai^atiou until the former wages are, if 
possible, restored. But if the previous wages have been 
barely enough to furnish the necessaries of life, with no 
nuu'gin for saving, and especially if the body of hiborers 
are ignorant and miand)itious, the probabilities are quite 
the other way. The falling olf in the quantity or quality 
of food and clotliing, and in the convenience and healthf ul- 
ness of the shelter enjoyed, wuU at once affect the efficiency 
of the laborer. AVith less food, wliich is the fuel of the 
lunnan machine, less force will be generated ; witli less 
clothing, more force M'ill be wasted by cold ; with scantier 
and me.iner quarters, a fouler air and dim'nislied access to 
the light will prevent the food from being duly digested 
in the stom.ich. and the blood from being duly oxydized in 
the lungs ; wHl lower the tone of the system, and expose 
the subject increasingly to the ravages of disease. Xow, 
in all these ways the laborer becomes less efficient sinq"»ly 
through the reduction of his wages. The current economy 
asserts that whatever is taken olf from Avages is added to 
proiits, and that hence a reduction of wages will increase 
capital and hence quicken employment, and hence, in turn, 
heighten wages. ]^>ut Ave have seen it to be i[uite possible 
that what is taken from wages no man shall gain. It is 
lost to the laboivr and to rlie world. Xow, so far as strictly 
cH'onomic ft)rces are concerned, where enters the restorative 
principle t The enqiloyer is not getting excessive profits, 
to be expended subsequently in wages. The laborer is not 
underpaid : he earns what he gets now no better than he 
formerly did his larger wages. 

This imago of the degraded laborer is not a fanciful one. 
There are .in England great bodies of population, com- 
munities counting scores of thousands, which have come, in 
just this way, to be pauperized and brutalized ; the inhabi- 
tants M-eakened and discaseil by undei-feeding and foul air 
until, in the second generation, blindness, lameness, and 



THE FATE OF 8PITALF1ELDS. 85 

scrofula become abnormally prevalent ; hopeless and lost 
to all self-respect so that they can scarcely be said to de- 
sire a better condition, for they know no better ; and still 
bringing children into the world to fill their miserable 
places in garrets and cellars, and, in time, in the wards of 
the "workhouse. 

Such a region is Spitalfields, where a large popular" 
tion, once reasonably prosperous and self-respectful, was 
ruined by a great change in the conditions of the silk 
manufacture. The severity of the industrial blows dealt 
them in quick succession was so great that the restorative 
principles never began to operate at all. Spitalfields suc- 
cumbed to its fate. Instead of it being true that the misery 
of the weavers was a reason to them to emigrate, it consti- 
tuted the very reason why they could not emigrate, or 
would not. Instead of it being true that their misery was 
a reason to them not to propagate, the more miserable they 
became, the more reckless, also, and the heavier grew their 
burdens. As a consecpience, in a single human generation" 
the inhabitants of Spitalfields took on a type suited to their 
condition. Short-lived at best, weakness, decrejjitude, and 
deformity made their labor, while tliey lasted, ineffective 
and wasteful. So long ago as 1842 the Poor-Law Com- 
missioners reported that it was almost a thing unknown 
that a candidate from this district for appointment in the 
police was found to possess the requisite physical qualifi- 
cations for the force. 1 "You could not," says another 
witness, "raise a grenadier company among them all." 
Yet it is recorded that the Spitalfields volunteers during 
the French wars were "good-looking bodies of men." 

But if this loss may be suffered in respect to the physical 
powers of the laborer through a reduction of wages, quite 
as certainly and quite as quickly may his usefulness be im- 
paired through the moral effects of such a calamity. And 
just as the greatest possibilities of industrial efficiency lie 

' Report, p. 202. 



l^ 



86 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

in the creation of hopefulness, self-respect, and social am- 
bition among the laboi'ing class, so the chief possibilities of 
loss lie in the discouragement or the destruction of these 
qualities. We have seen through what a scale the laborer 
maj ris3 in his progress to productive power ; by looking 
back we may see through what spaces it is always possible 
he may fall under the force of purely industrial disasters. 
" The wages of labor," says Adam Smith, " are the en- 
couragement of industry, which, like every other human 
quality, improves in proportion to the encouragement it 
receives." If this be true, every reduction of wages nnist, 
in some degree, diminish the efficiency of labor. But 
it is when the reduction begins to affect the power of 
the workman to maintain himself according to the standard 
of decency which he has set for himself that the decline 
in industrial quality goes on most rapidly. The fact that 
he is driven to squalid conditions does not merely lower 
his physical tone : almost inevitably it impairs his sense of 
self-respect and social ambition, that sense which it is so 
difficult to awaken, so fatally easy to desti'oy. Especially 
as the pinching of want forces his family into quarters 
where cleanliness and a decent privacy become impossible 
does the degradation of labor i)roceed with fearful rapidity.' 
Ambition soon falls the laborer utterly ; self-respect disap- 
pears amid the beastly surroundings of his life ; the spring 
of effort is broken ; it may be he becomes dissipated and 
irregular, and his employer can not afford his beggarly pit- 

' " Modesty must be an iinknown virtue ; decency, an unimag'inable 
thing, where in one puiall dianiber, with the beds lying as tliickly as 
tliey can be packed, father, mother, young men, hids, grown and grow- 
ing-up girls are herded promiscuously ; where every operation of the toi- 
let and of nature — dressings, undressings, births, deaths — is performed 
within the sight and hearing of all ; where children of both sexes to as 
higli an age as 1'3 or 14, or even more, occupy the same bed ; where 
the wliole atmosphere is sensual, and human nature is degraded into 
something below the level of tlie swine. It is a hideous picture ; and 
the picture ix dniioii from life." — AppenJis: to the First Report of the 
Poor-Law Coni.nis.douers, p. o4. 



INDUSTRIAL IN JURIES REMAIN. 87 

tance now so well as formerly the wages of liis hopeful 
labor. 

All such effects tend to remain and perpetuate them- 
selves. When people are down, economical forces solely 
are more likely to keep them down, or push them lower 
down, than to raise them np. It is only on the assumption 
that labor will resent industrial injuries, either by seeking 
a better market or by abstaining from reproduction, that 
it can be assei-ted that economical laws have a tendency to 
protect the laboring class and secure their interests. Just 
so far as laborers abide in their lot, and bring forth after 
their kind, while suffering industrial hardship, no matter 
how in the first place incurred, the whole effect and ten- 
dency of purely economical forces is to perpetuate, and not 
to remove, that hardship, either in the next year or in the 
next generation. Moral and intellectual causes only can 
repair any portion of the loss ani waste occasioned. 

If such are the unfortmiate liabilities of a violent reduc- 
tion of Avages, it will of course appear, without any extended 
illustration, that the effe'cts of a protracted failure of employ- 
ment must be even more injurious to the efficiency of labor 
where the margin of life is at the best narrow and no accu- 
mulation of savings has been effected. All the hardships 
of the conditions described are here aggravated to an- intol- 
erable degree, and it is more than is to be expected of hu- 
man nature if despondency and despair do not drive the 
unhappy laborer to the dram-shop ^ to drown his sorrows 
and his fears in indulgences which will leave him worse in 
character and weaker in nerve and sinew. However in- 
dustry may revive, the shattered industrial manhood can 
never be fully restored. 

But perhaps even more than in the miserable resort to 
the dram-shop, the fatal effects of a cessation of employ-- 



^ " C'est surtout pendant les epoques de chomages que rouvriei-, ne 
sachant comment employer ses heures, hante le cabaret." — Rapport 
(M. Ducarre) Salaires et rapports entre ouvriers et patrons, p. 239. 



88 Tin: WAGES QUESTION. 

mcnt upon tlu^ iiuhistrial (puility are seen in the readiness 
with Avhirh, mIiou oiu'o he has had exporiouco of public 
support, the hiborer takes refuge in eharitv. Ivarely is ehur- 
aeter found robust enougli to throw otf this taint. Let a nuui 
oiu'o be brought to that painful and most huuiiliating ne- 
I'ossity, it is scareely an exaggeration to s<iy that ever after 
he uui8t be counted as industrially dead. Where first lie 
was driven, as to the bitterness of death, only by extremity 
of sulfering, oidy after desperate etforts and long endur- 
ance, he now resorts with a fatal facility on the tii"st sug- 
gestion of want. Known to his conu'ades as having re- 
ceived relief, his children bearing the pauper-brand anuuig 
their playmates, all ingenuous sensibility soon disappears. 
'" We can not,'' sjiys Mr. MeOullagh Torrens, in his work 
*' The Lancashire Lesson," dealing with the experiences of 
luiglaud during the Cotton Famine incident to our war — 
'• we cannot help marking the readiness with which, on tlie 
lii-st cessjition of adeipiate wages, large nund>ei's of pei-sons 
no\v resort to rates and subscription funds, many of whom 
three years ago would have shrunk instinctively from such 
]niblic avowal of indigence." This is the despair of indus- 
try. The pauper lies below the slave in the industrial 
scale. No lower depth opens downward from this. 

My <>bject, I repeat, in treating here this topic of '* the 
degnidation of labor" is to point out the constantly innni- 
nent danger that bodies of laborei's will not soon enough 
or amply enough resent industrial injuries which nuiy be 
wreught by the concerted action of employei's, or by slow 
and gradual changes in production, or by catastrophes in 
business, such as commercial panics ; and upon this, and 
in innnediate connection with the discussion of the causes 
\\hich contribute to the efficiency of labor, to show the self- 
}»erpetuating nature of such industrial injuries under the 
operation of the very econouiical principles which, with 
alert and mobile labor iiitelligently seeking its interests, 
would secure relief aud restoration. 



CHAPTER Y, 

THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS. 

We have now reached a point where we must consider 
the principles which govern the relations of population to 
subsistence. 

Why should not population multiply indefinitely and 
still find, at each stage of incre<::ise, food ample for all ? 
I^ay, with the power there is in mutual help, and with the 
wonderful mechanical advantages wdiich result from the 
subdivision of industry and the multiplication of occupa- 
tions, why should not the share of each be continually aug- 
menting as the number of laljorers ca[)a]jle of rendering 
such mutual services and uniting in industrial entei'prises, 
increases ? 

The answer to these questions is found in the Law of 
Diminishing Returns in Agriculture. Up to a certain 
point, the increase of laborers increases the product not 
only absolutely but relatively ; that is, not only is more pro- 
duced in the aggregate, but the product is larger for each 
laborer. Two men working over a square mile of arable 
land will not only merely produce twice as much as one man : 
they will produce more than twice, perhaps three times 
as much. This is because the two can take hold together 
of work to which the strength of either alone would be in- 
adequate, or which requires that one person shall be in one 
place, and another at the same time in another place, in 
order that the two may act simultaneously, as, for example, 
one driving oxen and the other liolding the plough. 



90 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

Moreover, where the two are not working together, in the 
usual aecej^tation of that term, thej may yet lielp each other 
greatly by agreeing to divide their tasks. Each, confining 
himself to a certain part, will become, for that reason, more 
apt and dexterons, will learn to avoid mistakes and save 
Avaste, and will acquire a facility iu production which would 
be impossible were he to undertake a wider and more 
varied line of duties. 

For a similar reason, three men will not merely produce 
three times as nnich as one : they will probably produce 
four times, perhaps five times, as much. A minuter sub- 
division of industry will become possible, and a more 
effective assistance in those parts of the work which require 
the actual co-operation of the different members. 

IVfuch in the same way is it with the applicatiou of capital 
to land. Let four men be working upon a square mile of 
arable land, having the use of a capital to the value of $25, 
conq)risiiig rude spades, axes, and hoes. Tiow, double that 
capital, allowing an iuq)rovenient in the quality of the tools 
oi' an increase in the (piantity as may be desired. There 
will be, if that additional capital have been judiciously 
used, an increase of product over the product of the same 
men when enq3loying the snuiller capital, which increase 
we will call A. If we place in the hands of thess men an- 
other $25 of cajntal, in forms appropriate to their wants, 
making $75 capital in all, we shall have another incre- 
ment oi product ; but it will not be A only, but A p^iix 
something. And if, again, we give them an additional 
capital of $75, making $150 in all, including now a horse, 
a plough, and a cart, the addition made thereby to their 
]u-oduct will not be oX merely : it may be 5A ; it may 
be lOA ; it may be 20 A. 

This process of increasing the labor and capital to be 
applied to a square mile of arable land might, as we need 
not take space to show, be continued to a very consider- 
able extent ; and all the while it would remain true that 
the product was increased more than proportionally, so 



mCREAaiNG RETURNS. 91 

that a contiimally larger share could be assigned to each 
individual laborer, and to each dollar of capital. The 
two principal causes for such increase of product, if we con- 
hne our attention to the increase in the nuniljer of laborers 
— as, for simplicitj^'s sake, we shall hereafter do — are 
those already indicated, namely : 1st, the ability of men actu- 
ally working together to do things to wdiich any one of them 
would be singly incompetent, or would do slowly, painfully, 
and imperfectly; and 2d, the advantages which men 
acquire by dividing their tasks, so that each may coniine 
himself to a single line of duties, and acquire a higher de- 
gree of efficiency therein. 

But now appears a new opportunity for at Once employ- 
ing more laborers on our square-mile tract, and increasing 
the remuneration of each. Let us suppose there are 12 
laborers, and that the increase of . capital has been such as 
to give them a sufficiency of the ordinary tools used in 
agriculture at the time. Let us also suppose that out of 
their previous production they have been able to save a 
considerable store of provisions and other necessaries of 
life, all included under the generic name capital. They 
have also bred livestock till they have a pretty full supply 
of working animals. 

Up to this time they have been cidtivating only certain 
portions of the tract to which we have assigned them. 
They could not cultivate the wdiole successfully with so 
few hands, and they have accordingly made selection of 
those parts which were best suited to their immediate pur- 
poses.' A skilled agriculturist walking over the tract, kick- 
ing a clod now and then on the cultivated parts with his 
toe, and breaking a hole with his heel, here and there, 
through the natural turf, would say that they had thus far 
made use only of the light, warm, sandy soils which yield 



. ' ". The principle wliich guides tlie American farmer is to take the 
most paying crop whicli can be grown with X\\e least cost of labor." — 
James Caird's Prairie Farming, p. 21. 



92 THE WAGES QUESTION 

quick returns on tlie application of little labor, but that 
there were other portions of the tract, as yet wet and cold, 
with a strong-, deep soil, which would some thne, with la- 
bor and capital, be much better worth cultivating'. More- 
over, a ]H)rtion of the tract is co\ered with wood, and 
a hundred acres, or so, lie in swamp, useless, and even pesti- 
ferous, to our young community. 

Kow, having reached the comparative freedom of life we 
have described, feeling strong in their united labor and 
their accumulated capital,' tliey resolve to undertake the 
thorough drainage of the swamp ; and with this view 
invite four new laborers from outside to join fortunes with 
them. The draining of the swamp invoh'es a year's labor, 
and reipiires the connnmiity to give up a year's crop, a 
thing which they would have been unable to do at an earlier 
})eriod in their history, but which their accumidations now 
render possible. The ground thus drained and opened, rich 
with the vegetable deposits of centuries, proves to be by far 
the most productive portion of their land. So far as they 
still work upon the old lands they achieve as large a product 
as before ; so far as they work upon the new land the pro- 
duct is greater ; and consequently (as Ave are assuming a 
community of land, of labor, and of wealth) the share of 
each is greater in spite of, or indeed by reason of, the in- 
crease in their nmubers. 

A few yeai"s pass. The store of provisions and other 
necessaries, of implements and of livestock, which was 
ilrawn down very low by the great effort of draining the 
swamp, has now, from the increased productiveness of the 
joint estate, grown to dimensions larger than ever before. 
The connnunity is now, therefore, in a position to under- 
take any improvement which, though invt)lving large pre- 

' " In a new country and among poor settlers . . . poor land is a rela- 
tive term. Land is called poor which is not suitable to a poor man, which, 

on mere clearing and buruiug, will not yield good first crops 

Thus that which is poor land for a poor iiuin may prove rich land to a 
rich man." — Prof. Johnston's Notes on North America, ii. IIG, 117. 



INCREASING BETURNS. .93 

sent expenditures, promises to be remunerative in the final 
result. The incentive tlms arising from the possession of 
capital joining, as it chances, with the arrival of four new 
^ laborers who desire to cast in their f ortmies with the young 
comnmnity, leads to the resolution to thoroughly under- 
drain the rich, deep soils which have been lying so long 
cold and wet, on the further side of a sharp, rocky ridge, 
while the thinner but dryer and warmer parts have been 
cultivated for the sake of their cpiick returns. Another 
harvest is foregone and the year given up to the improve- 
ment, which again brings the stock of provisions and cloth- 
ing very low, and reduces the tools and livestock of the 
community to the smallest dimensions consistent with 
working efficiency ; but the thing is done, and done once 
for all : soils richer and stronger have been opened to til- 
lage, and the community, now consisting of 20 laborers, is 
able to withdraw, in the main, from the lighter, sandy soils, 
and concentrate their energies principally on the site of the 
former s\vamp, and on the parts last brought under cultiva- 
tion ; and now the product per man is notably increased, 
while the capabilities of the soil are so liberal that the 
land responds to every increase of capital with constantly- 
increasing returns. 

It will not be necessary to recite the cutting down of the 
timber, the clearing up of the ground, and the opening of 
what is, after all, the best land of the whole tract. Suffice 
it to say that the poorer lands are now given up entirely, 
and the community, increased by accessions from abroad to 
24 laborers, working on none but those soils which are really 
in the broad view^ the most productive, obtains a larger ^(?/'- 
capita crop than ever before. 

So far certainly we have not reached a condition of 
" diminishing returns." On the contrary, returns have 
increased with and through the increase of population. 
But w^e will now suppose that 24 laborers are as many as 
can be employed to the best advantage on the good lands 
of the tract which we have been considering, and that if 



94 Till-: ]VAGI':s Qin-J^TION. 

25 laborovf! Avoro to be onpii>;o(l tlu' product would 1)0 mure 
than witli 24 — for that is a matter ot" eourse — but not ^^ as 
imu'h more, so that, Avith eonmnmity of labor and of 
wealtli, each of the 'I'l must faiu ]>e content with a little 
less than each of tlu> 24 had received ; and, in tlie sauie 
Avav, were still another laborer to appear, the 2(i would pro- 
(hici> more thanthi>2.'i had done, tt) be sure, but not ^^^ more, 
so that each of the 2(i wouUl receive less even than each of 
the 25 had doue. 'Phis would be acondition of '' diuiiuish- 
iui;' ri'turus;"' and this (•(•uditiou is Habk' to be reached in 
the course of tlio settleuieut of any reii,aon.' 

AVe will suppose our couuuuuitv to beeouu' awai-e of 
this couditiou, aud theivou to rest>l\e that no further acces- 
sions from abroad shall be received ; but in the verv act of 
so rest)lvinii;, oue of tlie nuudier discovers the ])riiu'iple of 
the rotation i>f crops. Heretofore thev had been aeens- 
tomed to leave every year a portion of their choicest lands 
uusowu, haviui;- learned tliat this was essential to keeping 
the soil iu its highest pro(hicti\e ]X>wer. Thus they not 
only lost the atlvautage of cultivating these choicest por- 
tions of their domain, but, as they fouiul it necessary to 
plough the tallow iu order to keep down the Aveeds, they 
had to lay o\\{ a part of their laboriug-poAver each year Avith- 
out any result iu the crop of the year. But the discovery 
of the priiu'i}>le of rotation changed all this. The dis- 



' Prof, rairnos's answor to tlioso who d(>ny tlio diminisliin>^ pioiUu-- 
tivenossof laiul is iibsohitt'ly I'Diu-hisivt*. " If any ono dt'iiic's tho fact, 
it is open to him to n-fiitc it by nuiliiuf'" tlio experiment. Let him 
show that he run obtain from a limitiHl area of poil any reqnired 
quantity of produce by simply inoreasinji: tho outlay — that is to say, that 
by (luadruplini^ or (UM'ui)ling- the outlay, he can obtain a quadruple or 
decujile return. If it be asked why those who nniintain the atUrina- 
tive of the doctrine ilo not establish their views by actual experiment, 
the answer is that the experiment is perfonned for the»i by every jmte- 
tied! fit r me r : and that the fact of the diminishing productiveness of 
the soil is proved by their conduct in prcftMrinjr to resort to inferior 
soils rather than force uuprotitably soils of better quality." — Logical 
Method, etc. , i>. 35. 



INGBEASINO RETURNS. 9!i 

eovery, in a word, was that tlia soil, like a man or a horse, 
may rest from one kind of work while doing- another ; that 
to the soil the raising of two dilferent crops is the doing 
of two different kinds of work : that crop A draws i\\m\ the 
soil properties a ; crop B, properties h ; crop C, properties 
c; and that consequently the soil may be recuperating as 
to properties a and 5, while bearing crop C quite, or nearly, 
as well as if it were doing nothing. 

Now, this discovery ©f the principle occurred, we will 
suppose, just in time to prevent the disappointment of 12 
worthy laborers who had come a great distance, hoping to 
join themselves with our community, but were on the 
point of being turned away on the ground that with 30 
laborers, under the existing system of fallows, the commu- 
nity M''ould be obliged to return to some of the less produc- 
tive lands which had been abandoned. With rotation, 
ht>weverj this objection no longer exists. The 12 new- 
comers are received, and inasnnich as the laborei's in the 
fields are now relatively more concentrated, not having to 
go out to work, or to haul the produce over fallow spaces, 
and inasnmcli, too, as the increase in numbers allows a 
mncli higher degree of co-operation and a minuter subdivi- 
sion of industry (always a prolific source of mechanical ad- 
vantage), while yet all are working on the better lands, tlie 
product is found to be not one half larger only, but even 
more, so that each of the 30 receiv^es more than each of the 
24 had done. 

It will not bo necessary to take our reader's time to relate 
how the simple suggestion that muck might be taken from 
the bed of the old swamp and spread on other portions, led 
to the employment of four additional laborers from abroad ; 
or how the invention' of a new ])lough which turned up ' 
the eartli from 18 inches depth instead of 8, as by the' 
[)loughs previously in use, allowed the number of laborers 



' Bo it remembered that in our coiniiimiity there are neither rents 
nor royalties. 



96 rilE WAGES QUESTION. 

to rise, one by one, to 48, not only with no diminution of 
the average product, hut with its positive increase. 

Xow, the above illustrations have not exhausted the num- 
ber ov exaggerated the scope and effect of advantages in the 
resort from inferior to better soils, in the accomplishment 
of permanent improvements, in the invention of tools and 
implements, in the discovery of new resources, and in 
the utilization of waste, which may enable the number of 
laborers in any given country to increase from year to year 
without the part of each being diminished.' 

But without trying further my reader's patience, I will 
assume that, in the case taken, all known means of increas- 
ing the product proportionally, or more than proportionally, 
to the increase of the number of laborers, have been tried 
and exhausted, and that with 4S laborers to the S(}uare- 
mile tract the condition of " dimiuishing returns" hat^ 
been reached, so that any increase of laborers beyond that 
]ioint will result in a diminished per-capifa ])roduct. In 
such a condition the remark of Mr. J. S. Mill applies: " It 
is in vain to say that all mouths which the increase of man- 
kind calls into existence bring with them hands. The new 
mouths require as much food as the old ones, and the hands 
do not produce as nuich.'"^ Let it be borne in mind, how- 
ever, that the aggregate product may still, and may even 

' " The soil of England produces eight times as much food as it 
]U'oiluced 500 years ago." — Rogers, Pol. Econ., p. 181. Of the agriculture 
of till' former ]H>riod, Prof. Rogers says : " In those days half the an\- 
ble land lay in fallow. The amount produced was, to t.ilie wheat as 
an example, about eight bushels the aci'e in ordinary years, i.e., little 
more than a third of an average crop at the present time. There 
were no artificial grasses. Clover was not known, nor any of the 
familiar roots. As a consequence, there was little or no winter feed, 
except such coarse hay as could be nu\de and spared. Cattle were 
small and stunted by the privations and hard fare of winter. The 
average weight of a good ox was under four cwt. Sheep, too, were 
small, poor, and came very slowly to maturity. The average weight 
of a tleece was not more than two pounds. With ill-fed cattle there 
was little or no strong manure." — Pol, Econ., pp. 157, 158. 

« Pol. Econ. i. 230. 



DIMINISHINO RETURNS. 97 

indefinitely, be increased by additional labor. England, 
densely populated and liiglily cultivated as that country 
is, lias not begun to approach the state where additional 
labor will produce no appreciable increase of crops. 
" There are," says Prof. Senior, " about 3Y,000,000 acres in 
England and "Wales. Of these it has been calculated that 
not 85,000 — less, in fact, than one four-hundredth part — are 
in a state of high cultivation, as hop-grounds, nursery- 
grounds, and fruit and kitchen gardens, and that 5,000,- 
000 are waste.'" Prof. Senior proceeds with this striking 
exposition of the capabilities of production : 

" If the utmost use were made of lime and marl and 
other mineral manures ; if, by a perfect system of drainage 
and irrigation, water were nowhere allowed to be excessive 
or deficient ; if all our wastes were protected by enclosures 
and planting ; if all the land in tillage, instead of being 
scratched by the plough, were deeply and repeatedly 
trenched by manual labor ; if minute care were employed in 
the selecting and planting of every seed and root, and 
watchfulness sufficient to prevent the appearance of a 
weed ; if all livestock, instead of being pastured, had their 
food cut and brought to them ; in short, if the whole 
country were subjected to the labor which a rich citizen 
lavishes on his patch of suburban garden ; if it were pos- 
sible that all this should be effected, the agricultural pro- 
duce of the country might be raised to ten times, or indeed 
to much more than ten times, its present amount. . . . 
But although the land in England is capable of producing 
ten times, or more than ten times, as much as it now pro- 
duces, it is probable that its present produce will never be 
quadrupled, and almost certain that it will never be de- 
cupled." 



It will not have failed to be observed that the law of 



> Pol. Econ., p. 83. 



98 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

diminishing returns does not apply directly to mechanical 
industry. Yet, inasmuch as the materials of that industry 
are all ot" an agricultural origin, or at least are all taken 
from the soil, the cost of manufactured pn)ducts will in- 
evitably be enhanced in conseipience. All, however, 
will not rise ecpially from this cause. Those in which the 
cost of the material is relatively small may for a long time 
decline in jirice in spite of " diminishing returns;" those in 
which the cost of the material is relatively largo may increase 
steadily in spite of mechanical inventions and improve- 
ments. 

In 1832 Mr. llabbage stated' that pig-lead to the value 
of £1 became worth Avhen manufactured into 

£ 

Shei'ls or pipes of inodpvate dimensions 1.3.") 

Whitf lead 2.60 

Ordinaiv iirintinir characters 4.90 

The small" SI type 28.30 

Cop])er of the value of £1 became worth when manu- 
factured inti) 

£ 

Copper slicetiiig 1.26 

Household utensils 4.77 

Metallic clotli, 10,000 meshes to the square inch. . . . 53.23 

Bar-iron of the value of £1 became worth Avheu manu- 
factured into 

£ 

Siii iron for nails 1.10 

Natural steel 1 .42 

Horseshoes 2.5) 

Gun-barrels, ordinary 9. 10 

Wood-saws 14.28 

Scissors, best 446.94 

Penknife-blades 657. 14 

Sword-handles, polished steel 972.82 

Now, it is evident that the ])art of the cost of the nearly 
£1000 of sword-handles, instanced by Mr. Babbage, which 
is affected bv the law of dinnnishin<j returns, is the few 



' Economy of Manufactures, pp. 163, 164. 



DIMINISIimG RETURNS. 99 

shillings' worth of pig-iron originally taken 2>^us the few 
shillings' worth of coal necessary to produce the power 
and the melting and the tempering jieat for the successive 
processes of manufactm-e. Witli the progress of chemical 
and mechanical discovery, therefore, tlie cost of the sword- 
liandle and the penknife-blade will approach 'that of tlie 
horseshoe and the nail-iron. The efficiency of human 
labor, again, in the production of wheat may have in- 
creased sixfold since the days of the Odyssey ; the efficiency 
of labor in converting that wheat into bread, as M. 
Chevalier computes it, has been multiplied one hundred 
and forty-four times. The efficiency of labor in producing 
wool may have increased four-fold in this long period, but 
many living men have seen the efficiency of labor in ren- 
dering wool into cloth multiplied fifty- fold. 

So far, then, as human wants can be met by the ela- 
boration of the crude materials furnished by the earth, 
satisfactions (to use the term wdiicli Bastiat's writings have 
brought so much into vogue) may be multiplied almost in- 
definitely, not in spite of, but partly in consequence of, 
the increase of population. Tlie mechanic of to-day, if his 
wages yield something over the demands of physical main- 
tenance, may purchase with the balance luxuries, in one 
of a thousand forms, which two hundred years ago would 
have tasked the means of the wealthiest banker. The wife 
of a common laborer may wear fabrics which would once 
have excited the admiration of a court. But, after all, the 
great bulk of the consumption of the working classes must 
be in coarse forms of agricultural produce simply pre- 
pared. It matters little to the laborer that for a few pence 
additional he may have his cotton wrought into exquisite 
designs which a century ago would have recpiired months 
for their elaboration, if the pence he has are not enough 
to buy a sufficient weight of cotton to keep him and his 
children warm. His main concern is with the cost of 
grains and meats, of cotton and wool, of iron and wood ; 
and to these, in their simplest forms, the law of diminish- 



100 Tilt: WAGES QUESTION. 

ing returns applies with a stringency that never relaxes. 
" If the fact wore otherwise . . . the science of })olitical 
economy, as it at present exists, Avould be as completely 
revolutioiiizod as if human nature itself were altered.'" 

' J. E. Caimt'S, Loyicul Method, otc, p. 3G. 



CHAPTER YI. 

MALTHUSIANISM IN WAGES — THE LAW OF POPULATION. 

To the situation reached at tlie close of the hxst chapter 
let us now apply the law of population known by the 
name of the English writer who, if he did not discover the 
principles underlying it, at least called and compelled gen- 
eral attention to them. 

The reader will have noted that in tracing the gradual 
increase in numbers of the agricultural connnunity whose 
experiences formed the subject of the last chapter, the ad- 
ditional laborers for whom room and work were found 
were in all cases called in from abroad, and that these 
laborers were taken as without families, or at least that 
women and children were in no way introduced into the 
narrative. This was because we were then only concerned 
with the industrial capabilities of the square-mile tract 
under consideration. 

But now let us change the supposition. The addi- 
tion of laborers shall be through the growth to maturity 
of the children of the first residents. All the conditions 
will remain substantially the same, through the whole 
course of settlement and improvement, until we reach 
the stage of "diminishing returns." Here the differ- 
ence between tlie two modes of accession begins, and 
here Malthusianism applies for the iii'st time. In the 
last chapter onr snpposition was that when the point 
was reached where the number of laborers was as great 



103 TIIK WAGES QUESTION. 

as ('(tiild b(' (Mii|tl(>yiMl iipoii tlio laiul to advantage 
— that is, M-itlu>ut a ixHluctioii ol" the />('r-<'((j)ita crop — 
the existing!; Ixulv of lal)oivrs uould refuse to receive 
i'urtlier accessions, and thus stop at lhi> limit of the hii;'hest 
in«livi(hial product. l>ut how mmU it he if the accessions 
are hy the arrival at maturity of the childivn of the lahorcrs 
themselves^ Will that mode of increase he checked so 
easily, surely, amh one nnght say, automatically, when tlie 
ri'al interests of tlu' lahorer demand that no more shall he 
adnutted to the land now tilled to its hi^'hest inr-caplta 
capahility '. Mr. Malthns answers. No ; and his n'reat re|>u- 
tation rests on his searchiui;- investi<;-ation of the })rinciples 
of populati<»n, and his coni-hisive statement that j)o[)ulation 
lias tenck'd, at least under past human conditions, to disre- 
<;ai'd the moral inhibition contained in the iVct of diminisli- 
iui;- returns, and to increase thereafter faster than subsist- 
ence, and even to })ersist in that increase, while food he- 
came more scant, meagj-e, and nnnourishing, until at hist 
the one suiHcient clun-k was applied by disease and famine. 
l*o])uhition, said Mr. JMalthus, increases in a geometrical 
ratio, while suhsistence increases in an arithmetical ratio 
only. What, now, is the characteristic of geometrical as 
contrasted with arithmetical increase? It is that the 
increase itself inereases. Thus, in a series of seven tern)s, 
we might have : 

Arithmetical, l\ 4, (!, S, 10, VI, U. 
(;eonu>trical. l\ 4, S, l»i, ;}2, 04, 128, 

Here, in tlie former series, the actual difference between 
the sixth antl seventh terms is the same as that between the 
first and second, namely, 2. Tn the latter series, the 
dilference between the lirst and second ti'rms is also 2, 
while between the sixth and seventh it is (>4. This tre- 
mendous leap from term to term is due to the fact that the 
increase hetween the lirst and secmul terms hecomes itself 
the cause of increase hetween the second and third terms ; 
and this increase, in turn, becomes the cause of corre- 



THE LAW OF POPULATION. 103 

sponding increase between the third and fourth, and so on 
to the end. Wliereas in the aritlunetical series we may 
say that tlie entire increase conies out of the original first 
term, and all the successive increments remain themselves 
barren. 

Mankind, like every other species of animals, said Mr. 
Mai thus, tend to increase in a geometrical ratio. Speaking 
broadly, every human pair, no matter in what term of the 
series appearing, has the same capability of reproduction 
as the original pair, and has the same likelihood of an 
equally numerous offspring, after the same number of gen- 
erations, as Adam and Eve are credited with. It is in this 
fact of a reproductive capability in the descendant equal to 
that of the ancestor that Mr. Malthus found the possibili- 
ties of perpetual poverty, misery, and A'ice among the human 
race. At this point, however, it needs to be observed that 
the mere fact of children being born to every human pair 
on earth does not of itself meet the conditions of Mr. Mal- 
tlius's reasoning. Mr. Greg, in his Social Enigmas, has 
written as if Malthusianism presented the issue whether 
people should have children or not. But it is plain — almost 
too plain, indeed, to be formally stated — that every human 
pair might have one child, and yet the race become extinct 
in a few generations ; might have two children, yet no in- 
crease of population result, the children only supplying the 
parents' places in the social and industrial order ; nay, as a 
large proportion of those who are born do, and seemingly 
must, in the present state of sanitary and medical science, 
die before reaching maturity, and as many Avho survive do, 
from one cause or another, remain single, every married 
pair might have three children, and yet there be no in- 
crease. Surely these facts dispose of Mr. Greg's sentimen- 
tal grievance. 

The doctrine of Malthus, then, assumes an average 
mimber of children to a family sufficient, after allowance 
for infant mortality, celil)acy, and exceptional sterility, to 
yield a net increase in each generation. As matter of fact, 



104 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

Mr. Maltlius' assumes in excess of four children to a family 
as the average under conditions where neither " vice, misery, 
nor moral restraint" appear to check the natural progress of 
population. The validity of the theory does not, however, 
depend on the specific ratio taken. Given only a number 
of children sufficient to yield a net increase, however 
slight, in each generation, witli an undiminished reproduc- 
tive capability in each married pair, we have the condi- 
tions of a geometrical progression. And the capabilities of 
a geometrical progression when persisted in are simply 
tremendous. "■ TI13 elephant," says Mr. Darwin, " is 
reckoned tlie slowest breeder of all known animals, and I 
iiave taken some pains to estimate its probable minimum 
rate of natural increas3. It will be safest to assume that 
it begins breeding when thirty years old, and goes on 
breeding till ninety years old, bringing forth six young in 
tlie interval, and surviving till one hundred years old ; if 
this be so, after a period of from seven hundred and forty 
to seven hundred and fifty years there would be alive 
nearly nineteen million elephants descended from the first 
pair. . . . Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty- 
five years, and at this rate in a few thousand years there 
would literally not 1)3 standing-room for his progeny."'^ 

But how would it be meanwhile Avith subsistence ? In 
saying that this tend ^ to increase in an arithmetical ratio 
oidy, Mr. Malthus did not deny an inherent capability in 
vegetable life to reproduce itself far more rapidly than it is 
given to most species of animals to do. " Wheat, we know," 
says Prof. Senior, " is an annual, and its average power of 
reproduction perhaps about six for one ; on that supposi- 
tion, the produce of a single acre might cover the globe in 
fourteen years.^ Here, surely, is geometrical and geogra- 
phical pr|3gression with a vengeance ! Why, then, assert 
for vegetable life a power of arithmetical progression only ? 



' The Principle oi Population, i. 474r-6. 

'" The Origin of Species, chap. iii. ^ Pol. Econ. , p. 30. 



THE LA W OF SUBSISTENCE, 105 

The justification of this will be found in the last words of 
the extract just given : the globe would he covered,^ and 
that in fourteen years, by the increase of a single acre of this 
comparatively unprolific cereal. There are weeds, and even 
useful plants, whose rate of increase would allow them to 
overspread the earth in half that time. Mr. Malthus's theory 
assumes the earth generally occupied and cultivated, in its 
fertile parts at least. From this point on, all increase of 
vegetable food must be mad 3 against an increasing resist- 
ance, and hence can only be obtained through the expen- 
diture of constantly-increasing force. After the condi- 
tion of " diminishing returns" described in the preceding 
chapter has been reached, every addition to the crop is 
obtained at the cost of more than a proportional amount 
of labor. Thus the share of each laborer becomes smaller 
and still smaller, as, through the persistence^ of the sexual 
instincts, population continues to increase. " The di ininisl> 
ing productiveness of the land, as compared with the un- 
diminished power of human fecundity, forms the basis of 
the Malthusian theory.'" 



From my own analysis of the doctrine of Mr. Malthus, I 



* " Throughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms nature has scat- 
tered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand, 
but has been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment 
necessary to rear them." — Maltluis, The Principle of Population, i. 3. 

" L'accroisement des moyens d'existence et I'accroisement du capital 
ont necessairement des limites dans un espace de temps donne. Au 
contraire, l'accroisement de la population est pour ainsi dire illimite. 
.... Si done, entre ces deux productions extremement inegales, 
la prevoyance humaine ne s'interpose, une calanaite est imminente." 
— M. Chevalier, 7eme Discours, d'Overture du cours de I'annee, 1846-7. 

■^ " The same power that doubles the population of Kentucky, 
Illinois, and New South Wales every five-and-twenty years, exists 
everywhere, and is equally energetic in England, France, and Holland." 
—J. R. McOulloch, Pol. Econ. 226. 

' Prof. Rickards, Poi)ulation and Capital, p. 127. 



100 Tift: WAGES QUESTION. 

should sjiy ho reached in suceossiou three results : iirst, thy 
jHxcf/' of population to iucroase faster than subsistence ; 
secondly, the f</i(h fi(\// oi population so to increase — that is, 
he proved that the mere fai-t ot" passing into the stiige of " di- 
niinishiiig returns" in production has of itself nt> necessary 
elfect Mhatever to check propagatit>n ; thirdly, the (hhr- 
iiihiatio/i, the strong and urgent disposition, of population 
so to increase, due to the power and persistence of the 
sexual instincts, under the force of which hnnian reproduc- 
tion will go forward in spite of the plain warnings of pru- 
dence, in spite oi increasing discomfort, sqnalor, and 
hunger. " Moral restraint" nught, Mr. Malthus admitted, 
intervene to stay the fatal })rogress ; but this required too 
much virtue to bo reasonably e.\]>ected of large nuisses of 
people. Hence the limit to population must be looked for 
mainly in " vice" (^a preventive check to population) ov in 
" misery" ^^a positive check). Prostitution might enter in 
disparagement of marriage ; tVoticide and abortion might 
enter to diminish the avemge number of children to a 
marriage ; such were the methods of vice inlhniting popu- 
laticni by diminishing births. On the other hand, misery — 
that is, privation and excessive exertion — bv aii'i>-ravatini; in- 
funt mortality and shortening the duration of mature life, 
has been found, and is likely through an indetinite future 
to be found, the chief agency in keeping down the num- 
bei*s of mankind. 

Of this last result it may be said that it was a not very 
extravagant generalization of the experiences of nu^st of 
the countries of Europe to which Mr. Malthus, writing be- 
fore the French Revolution had fully wrought its mighty 
work, could look to ascertain the comparative strength of 
the principle of increase and the restniints of prudence, 
lie nught — indeed he did — look away to a co\uitrv beyond 
the ocean, Avhere a popular tenure of the soil, popular edu- 
cation, and a {topular control of govenunent nught be ex- 
pected to bring «,»ut the virtues of self-respect and self-re- 
straint ; but here it chanced tluit the political and the indus- 



ANALYSIS OF MALTHUSIANI8M. 107 

trial interests of the people coincided in encouraging the 
most rapid development of population. 

Such being the three successive but distinct results 
which make up Mr. Malthus's body of doctrine, it should 
be noted that thej are not all of the same validity. The 
first result comes directly out of facts in the physical con- 
ditions of the earth and of man, which cannot be impugned. 
The second, for all that is known of human physiology, 
would seem to be equally indisputable. Prof. Senior has, 
indeed, in terms, while admitting the power, denied the 
tendency ; but I must think that his denial should be 
taken as extending not to the tendency, but to what I have 
called the determination, of population to increase unduly. 
It seems incredible that Prof. Senior should have intended 
to question that population tends to increase faster than 
subsistence, so long, at least, as subsistence remains ade- 
quate to physical well-being, for it must be remembered 
that the condition of diminishmg returns may begin when 
t\\e per-capita product is still ample to afford a liberal sup- 
port to all. Now, a country may proceed a long time with 
diminishing returns, diminishing, it may be, very slowly, 
before squalor and hunger become the necessary concom- 
itants of an increase of population. So that, considering 
a people on the verge of that condition, it is certainly safe . 
to say that subsistence can not thereafter increase as fast as 
before, because the constitution of the soil forbids ; while 
yet population may, for a longer or a shorter time, continue 
to increase as fast as before, since the reproductive capa- 
bility' is undiminished and the sexual instinct remains as 
active and strong as ever. Hence, I believe Prof. Senior 
must have meant to deny this tendency only in the degree 

' Indeed, the reproductive capability might even he increased during 
the first stages of diminishing returns. This would doubtless be so if 
the previous returns to labor had been so liberal as to encourage luxu- 
riousness and some degree of effeminacy. In this case the first effects 
of diminished returns might be to induce a greater physical and ner- 
vous viffor. 



108 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

of force and persistency wliicli Mr. Malthus attributed 
to it. 

It is then against Mr. Maltlius's last result, namely, the de- 
termination, the strong and nrgent disposition, of popula- 
tion to increase in spite of reason and prudence, and in 
spite of pri\ation and squalor, that all valid criticism must 
he directed. Many of Mr. Malthus's opponents have con- 
sidered that they have demolished Malthusianism Avhen 
they have shown to their own satisfaction that the im- 
pulse to propagation is somewhat less strong, or that the 
motives and physiological tendencies which work against 
increase of population are somewhat stronger, than he re- 
presented them to be. Malthusianism, however, stands 
complete and inexpugnable on the demonstration of the 
power and the tendency of population to increase faster 
than subsistence. The gloomy forebodings of the amiable 
clergyman who promulgated the doctrine are not at all of 
its essence. Malthusianism would survive a demonstra- 
tion, on the largest scale, of the power of prudence and 
social ambition to hold the impulses to propagation lirmly 
in check. 



CIIAPTEE YIT. 



N E C E S S A K Y WAGES. 



The phrase " necemary wages" makes a consideraljle 
figure in economical literature. By it is intended a mini- 
num below which, it is assumed, wages can. not fall without 
reducing the supply of labor and thus inducing an cj^posite 
tendency, namely, to a rise in wages.' 

It is not meant that the employer is bound, by either 
equitable or economical considerations, to j)ay the laborer, 
in the immediate instance, enough to support life in him- 
self and family. The employer will, in general, pay only 
such wages as the anticipated value of the product will 
allow him to get back from the purchaser, with his own 
proper profits thereon. If, in a peculiar condition of in- 
dustry, he consents for a time to give up his own profits, 
or even to produce at a sacrifice, it is with reference to his 
own interest in keeping his laboring force, or his custo- 
mers, together, in the expectation that a turn in affairs will 



* " The cost of purchasing labor, like that of every thing else, must 
be paid by the purchasers. The race of laborers would become alto- 
gether extinct unless they were supplied with quantities of food and 
other articles sufficient for their support and that of their families. 
This is the lowest limit to which the rate of wages can be permanent- 
ly reduced, and for this reason it has been called tlie natural or neces- 
sary rate of wages." — J. II. McCulloch, Pol. Econ., p. 385. 



tlO THE WAGES QUESTIOX. 

eurtWe liitn to make himself good for the temjx^nirv h^s*. 
If he pavs moiv th:m is eousisteut with this object, or if 
he piiYs auY thing fivm any other view than his own iu- 
teivst, Avhat he thus p\vs is iu»t wagv^s, hut ahus disguised 
as wages. 

Suih instances of tem|H>i':irv siicritice aiv, however, ex- 
ceptional In the vast majority ».»f cases the wagt^s which 
emphnei-s pay their workmen are gmenuHl by the price 
at which they may fairly exjHvt to sell the pr^xluct ; and 
this, whether the workmen and their families can live 
thertnm or not. If now, in any country, at any time, 
laboivrs, f ivm any cause, beconie in excess of the demand, 
iiei*essin*v wages in that instance will not include a snthci- 
eney of fixxi and clothing for all these lal>oivrs, but only 
for tlu^se who are wanttnl. 

^or by necessiu-v wagvs is it iiieant that workmen will 
not aivept wj\ges which are Ih?Iow the stjuidard of subsist- 
ence. It is when men aiv receiving Avages which give 
them a margin for the comforts of life, and j>erhaps some- 
thing for luxury, that thev say, sometimes in very wcmton- 
ness, " If we can not have such and such wages, we will 
not work," and jHMvhance ivf use otfei"s which are as liWml 
as their employers can make. But when wages approach 
the dread line where they tvase to furnish a sufficiency of 
the ci>arsest t\xxl, lalx>ring men do not talk so. In coun- 
tries where there is no jxx>r law, and where the claim to 
sup|K>rt is not admitteil by the state, it is a thing imknown 
that a workman ivfnses wages Ixvanse thev will not keep 
himself and family alive, lie takes them for what they 
are worth, applies them as far as they will go, and works 
on, jx^rhaps with failing strength, eager to see\iiv the per- 
haj^s failing employment. If it is in the eity,aiid the siglit 
of luxury maddens the cnnvd of Ialx»rerj giddy with fast- 
in«r. the dreadful cry of " Bread or hloixl " may Ix? raised, 
and the last etfort of strength be given to pillage and de- 
struction. But the single laborer, acting ont his own inx- 



NECES8A11T WAGES. Ill 

pulses, takes tlie wages that are offered him never so surely 
as when those wages are chjse down upon the famine hue. 
U tlie least sum on which a jnan with a wife and five 
children can subsist, be seven shillings a week, and yet in 
hard times he is offered but six shillings for his labor, this 
does not mean that one victim is to be selected from the se- 
ven and set apart to starve, while tlie rest are fed. It means 
that all will try to live on the scantier supply. The famine 
line is not a line which it is easy to trace. Laboring men 
and women can live for single days on what they could not 
live upon during an entire M^eek ; they can live for a single 
week on what they could not live upon every week of the 
month ; they can even live for months on what they could 
not live upon an. entire year. They can live along for 
years on a half of what would be necessary to keep them 
in r(^lniKt liealth and with strength to labor efficiently. 
With the aged and the young the capacity of enduring 
privation is almost indefinitely less. Yet even when each 
succumbs in his turn, the nursing child and the young man 
in his strength, the chances are that it is to some distinct 
form of disease, for which privation has prepared the way. 
Thus in Ireland, when the annual number of deaths rose 
from Y7,754, the average of the three preceding years, to 
122,889 in 1846, and 249,335 in 1847, it was from fever, and i^ 
not from literal starvation, that the great mass of victims 
died.' So in India, in the famine of 1873-4, the number 
of deaths from starvation reported from districts embrac- 
ing: millions of inhabitants was in some instances but three, 
five, or ten, while yet the j)opulation had been greatly re- 
duced by an extraordinary mortality from the recognized 
forms of ordinary disease. Dr. Hunter, in his Fajnine 



* Tlie numb-jr of deatha actually attributed, on inquest, to starva- 
tion, and BO reported in the famous Irisli census of 1851, was 2041 in 
1840, 6058 in 1847, and 9395 during the two years following. (Report, K' 
Part v., vol. i.,p. 253.) 



ll-> THE WAGES qUESriON. 

Aspei'ts of liulia, has strikingly drawn the hnuentable 
pii'tiHV of a people entering the famine state. 

" At the outset of a famine the people fall back npon 
roots and various sorts of inferior green food. The ehildivu 
and the weaker nuMuI)ers of the family die, and those who 
survive eke luit a \erv insutHeient ([uantity of riee hv roots 
and wild plants. The Avages which wouhl ni)t sutfiee to 
feed an average family of four are sutHeient for the two 
or three nuMuhers who survive. Ihe rural population 
enters a j'ainlne as afrhjate goes into battle, cleared of all 
lifeless gear and inetfieient Die/nhers."' 

AVe have seen that hv " neeessarv Avages" is not meant that 
masters Avill not olfer, or workmen receive, in the iuuuedi- 
ate instance, wages which are greatly and itu-reasingly inade- 
([uate to the suj>port of life. l>ut more than this, it is not even 
meant that any wages at all are necesstirv miconditionally. 
The employing class may, from causes affecting the indus- 
try of a community or a country, itself slowly disappear. 
Many regions once most fair and llourishing have, as we 
know, been stricken with a paralysis of industry, leaving 
110 snudl part of their inhabitants occupationless. In such 
a case not only can no particular scale of wages be ssiid to 
be necessjiry, but no wages at all will be necessjirv ; the 
population thus rendered surplus must remove if it can to 
new seats, or remaining, as is most likely, nmst pass rapidly 
away by the excess of deaths over births, induced by hardship 
and privation. Hence, if we will say that wages nnist be 
high enough to maintain the laboring class in condition to 
labor, and to keep their muubers good, we shoidd bear in 
mind the condition on which this alone is true, namely, that 
the employing class is itself kept good. 

The whole significance of the term necessary wages is 
that, in order to the supply iif labor being maintained, 
wages must be paid which will not only enable the labor- 
iuix class to subsist according to the standard of comfoi-t 
and decency, or discomfort and indecency it nuiy be, which 



NECESSARY WAGES. 113 

they set up for themselves as tliat below which, they will 
not go, but will also dispose them to propagate' suffi- 
ciently to make up the inevitable, incessant loss of labor 
from death or disability. If the standard of living re- 
ferred to above varies among several communities or coun- 
tries, then the term " necessary wages" must be interpreted 
in each community or comitry according to the habitual 
standard there maintained. 

It is, then, because something besidas vice and misery 
do, in a degree, limit the increase of population, that the 
question of necessary wages becomes more than the ques- 
tion of the amount of the barest, baldest subsistence which 
will keep men alive and in condition for labor. And as, ii. 
fact, the standard of living varies with each community or 
country, the laboring population in no two making pre- 
cisely the same requirements as the condition precedent to 
their keeping their numbers good, the term necessary 
wages must be understood in each country and separate 
community according to the habitual standard there main- 
tained. 

JSTecessary wages, as thus defined, may be very low. It 
is commonly said that the lowest point which can be 
reached is that at which enough food (taking that as the 
type of expenditure), of the coarsest and meanest kind, can 



' It will be seen that the wages of the laborer thus made necessary 
must include not only his own subsistence but that of those persons, 
not themselves productive laborers, whose maintenance is a means to 
the supply of labor in the immediate future. Thus the wages of the 
bread-winners must provide food and care for woman in the weakness 
of childbearing, and for children in the years of infancy. Whether 
they shall also jirovide food and care for the aged in their decrepi- 
tude, and for the crippled and infirm, is determined by other conside- 
rations, to be noted further on. These, at least, are not essential to the 
supply of labor ; and in barbarous countries not a few, the horrid cus- 
tom of making away with those who are regarded as a hopeless burden 
shows that the support of such is not an element of necessary wages 
among those peoples. 



114 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

be provided to s-;ustuiu life and the ability to labor. Eut 
ill truth necessary wages may be a <i;reat deal lower than 
that. It is found that, throughout countries comprising a 
large ]xu-t of tlie lunuau race, the wages given and taken 
not only provide subsistence so scanty and so little nour- 
ishing that the ])opulation become stunted and more or 
less deformed and iuelTective in labor ; but that even so, a 
large part of all who are born die in infancy and early 
childhood from the effects of privation. The horrible in- 
fant mortality of many districts is not accounted for solely 
by neglect of sanitary precautions, but is also largely due 
to the low diet of mothers and children. 

But necessary wages may not only be so low as to recpiire 
the death, uudjr four years of age, of one half the persons 
born into the community : they may be so low as to re- 
(piire the phrase •"• to sustain life" to be very much tpiali- 
tied in respect to those who survive the period of childhood 
and attain the capacity to labor. In most countries, if we 
take civilized and semi-civilized together, no scale of wages 
is so necessary but that population will, in spite of an infant 
mortality aggravated almost to the proportions of a gen- 
eral massacre, increase to the point of docking one quarter, 
one third, or one half from the natural term of the industrial 
force, for all those who come to man's estate. By this I 
mean that, if ade^piate and wholesome food, with simply 
decent and healthful conditions of life, would, with no 
regeneration of society or perfection of individual man- 
hood, or even so much as the sanitary reformation of cities 
and dwellings, allow to persons attaining the age of 20 
years a further term, npon the average, of 40 years, popu- 
lation is still capable of increasing, in spite of the principle 
of necessary wages, until food, clothing, and tiring are so 
reduced, and dwellings become so crowded, that, instead 
of 40 years, an average term no longer than oO, or even 
20 years, is allowed to those who attain manhood. Surely 
the }>hrase to " sustain life" needs to be qualified in such 



THE STANDARD OF LIVING. 115 

cases, where life is, in fact, from want of food and ordinary 
comforts, sustained through but a fraction of its other- 
wise natural term. 

We have thus reduced the scope of the principle of 
necessary wages by showing, first, that no wages at all are 
necessary unless some one sees it for his own interest to 
employ labor, and, secondly, that when wages are paid, it 
is not necessary that they should be sufficient to sup2)ort 
more than two thirds or one half of tlie persons born into 
the world, or, in the case of those actually surviving to the 
age of labor, to " sustain life" through more than one half 
or three fourths of the natural term of labor. 

But there is nevertheless a truth in the doctrine of 
necessary wages. There is a point below which if, in any 
community, wages go, the supply of labor will not be kept 
up ; and hence if employers will have labor, they must 
pay for it up to this point. 

But it is not in every communit}^, it is not in most com- 
munities, perhaps it is not in any community, so long as 
employment is offered at all, that the minimum of wages 
is fixed by the barest physical conditions of keeping up the 
supply of labor. Powerful as is the sexual passion,' it has 
not unresisted sway. Somewhere above the point we have 
indicated — it may be far alcove, it may be but a little way 
above this — men will cease bringing children into the world. 
They may — in many countries they do — increase to such an 
extent as to involve the frightful infant mortality we have 
noticed, and to reduce the term of adult life to very narrow 
limits. But they will not sink to prove the last possibilities 
of the case ; they stop short of the bald, brutal demonstra- 
tion of the inability to keep up the supply of labor upon 
scantier food, fire, and raiment ; and stopping here, they do 



' " Happily there is but one passion of the same nature ; for if there 
were two there would not be a single man left in the universe who 
would be able to follow the truth." — An Eastern writer. 



116 THE WAGES QUESTION 

in faot i;'i\ themselves somo little nuirjiiln of living. The 
(^hinmuan hnys Ins jnveions ilnii;; ; the East Indian gives 
months of everv veav to the service of his goggle-eved di- 
vinity. 

In Fei"sia, Tnrkey, and (.>ther States of the Kast impeiu- 
tive enstom requiivs the most lavish outlay in the period 
inunediately before marriage, for whieh preparation or 
repartition has to be made dnring preceding or snceeeding 
years of labor. '* A man," writes Mr. Consul Taylor from 
Kooitlistan,' " one would not suppose to possess a penny, 
not unfrequently spends A';>0, raised on loan from his em- 
ployer, that is dissipated during the seven days of riotous 
living pi^H'eding the eeivmony." 

llei'e, then, we have the aetnal as distinguished from 
the theoretical minimum ; in other words, the " neees- 
Siiry wages," the wages that nuist be paid to keep the 
supply of labor good, if, indeed, it is to be kept gv>oJ ; 
for that, we have seen, is not a necessity. All the 
way uj> fi\>m this low })lane, through the scale of na- 
tions, we find points established Avhich mark the mini- 
mum <>f wages for one connnnnity i.>r another, those 
wages, namely, on which that eomnnmity will consent to 
keep its nunibei-s good. Such wages thus become the 
necessary wages for that community, necessary only in the 
sense that the habits of living among t!io people will not 
permit i"epi\xiuetiou sutKcient to repair the natural waste 
of labor, «.»u any lower terms, with any thin;»" les3 of the 
"necessiries, comfi>rts, and luxuries" of life. 

^'ow, since among most peoples fo<.Kl is the main object" 



* Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes. 1871. p. 800, cf. 
731. In Koonlistan the annual earnings of the artitiau appear to ran^ji* 
fwm £1-,^ to 4'IS. 

* The eminent statistician, Pr. Engel. of IVrlin. has jriven the fol- 
lowing eom]>»irative statement as showing the average relative expt>n- 
ditnre in Prussia of families of three classes, ranging fi-oni those of 
^veU-t^.vdo artisivus to ilio o of persons in easy cixvumstauces : 



THE STANDARD OF LIVING. 



117 



upon wliieh wages, are expended, economists liave been 
very nnicli in the way of grading the " necessary wages" of 
nations according to their habits respecting food, the princi- 



Pbrcextage of the Expenditure of the 
Family op 



Items of Expenditure. 



1. Food 

2. Clothinti;' 

3. Lodjrinir 

4. Firing and Lighting 

5. Education, Worship, etc... 
G. Legal protection 

7. Care of health 

8. Comfort and Recreation. . . 



1. 

A working 

man, with in 

come of $-i2b to 

$300 a year. 



Per cent. 
G2 
10 
12 



2. 3. 

A man of the | A person in 
intermediate ; easy circim- 
class, with in- stances, within- 
come of $450 to ! coini; of $7bQ 
$(iOO a year, ito $1125 a year. 



Per cent. 

55 

18 

12 

5 



Per cent. 

50 

18 

12 

5 



90 



3.5 



85 

5.5 
3 
3 
3.5 



l')i) 



100 



100 



From this table Dr. Engel deduces tii3 following proposition : 
While the proportion of the total outlay upon food increases as the 
family becomes poorer, the percentage of outlay for clothing is ap- 
proximately, and that for lodging is invariably, the same in the three 
classes taken for consideration. Dr. Engel seems disposed to regard 
this very much as a law of expenditure. I am disposed to believe, 
however, that the apparent conformity has been reached by merging 
iirban and rural communities which ic considered sejjarately would 
show very wide differences of expenditure on the several objects indi- 
cated ; and, secondly, that the extension of the inquiry to other lati- 
tudes and other social conditions would develop great diversity in 
these respects. The Baron Riesbeck in his Travels in Germany (Pink- 
erton, vi. 147, 173), in 1780, notes the very marked differences existing 
between Southern and Northern Germany as to the scale of expendi- 
ture on dress. The lower orders among the Turks probably expend 
more of their earnings relatively upon dress than the higher classes. 
The same may probably be assumed respecting the ordinary Danish 
workman, who insists on passing himself off as a gentleman on Sun- 
days. Again, the scale of expenditure on lodging varies greatly ac- 
cording to social conditions. In England, Mr. Clifford says, " the agri- 
cultural laborer seldona pays, even for a good cottage, more than -j-q- of 
his income, and more commonly -jV. The town laborer receiving 18 or 20 



Its 'I in: }VAaEs questton. 

pal nrtirlc in tlio diot o{ cacli hoiiiix tal<.on as i'.ulit'atiii;;" 
tlio wages wliii'li must there be paid to keep the supply oi 
lahor <i-oo(l. Thus it is said the Chinese M'ill hreed up to 
the point where a sutliciiMiev of iooi\ ot" the nu\uiest kind, 
1^ e\eu iiu'hidinii' nuu'h of Avhat we eall venuiu, can he 

t)htained to rear a eonstantlv-ini'reasing uuud)er (»f laborers 
of small stature aud low vitality. The East Indians, aijain, 
r.re satisfied with rit'e ;' and populati(Mi in that eotintrv, 
aeeordiuii'ly, will inerease on tliat diet, even in the faee of 
the certainty of a famine on anaverau'eonee in four or live 
years.'^ The Irish, au-ain, are satished with a potato diet,' 
anil will inerea.>3 \v^ t.> the limits of subsistenee on that 
food,^ thouii'h at thL> constantly-imminent risk of a scarcity 
fiMui the failure (>f that most uneertaiu I'rop. The Scotch, 



sliillinga weekly will certainly not piy les3 tli!\n ^ ; the nrti^an receiv- 
iuij; oO. 85 sliillings or £'v will pay ,V and, incliidinir rates and taxes, 
probably ji. — Asrrictiltviral Look out of 1874, p. 21(>. 

In France, Lord Hrabazon reports : " Whilst at about the same pe- 
riod town workmen were earning wages oS.^'i jier cent higher than 
agrieultural laliorers. these latter w.>re jiaying 40.4.') per cent less 
rent." — Uejiort on the (.\>udition of the Industrial Classes, 1872, p. 4!\ 

The well-known i>assiou of the Netherlander for having a whole 
house, however small, to himstdf, must, 1 think, result in a larger jmo- 
]iortional expenditure in this direetion by eonunon laborei-s than by 
the higher classes. 1 note also that Or. Kngel's computations do not 
agn^e very well with those given by Mr. Scott rt^specting the expendi- 
tures of families in WUrtentbnrg. ^Report on the t'ondition of the In 
dustrial Classes, 187i. pp. ISHl. 197. 20.").') 

' Mr. Brassey ssiys of the Coolie laborers em]doyed on the railway.; 
in India : " Their food consists of two pounds of rici> a day, mixed \\\x\\ 
:\ little curry ; and th.> cost of living on this, their usual diet, is only 1.*. 
a week." — Work and Wages, p. 88. 

- " No fewer than fi>nr great scarcities, amounting almost to famines." 
since the mutiny, namely, 1801-2, t80.")-0, 1808-0, 1873-4.— The Puke of 
Argyle, quoted by London Economist, May 0, 1874. 

' ■• A laborer in Ireland will live and bring uj) a family on jiotatoes ; 
n lalxirer in England will see the world unpeopled tirst." — General T. 
Perronet Thompson. 

* " Three times the number of persons »'an bt^ fed on an acre of po 
tatoes who can bo maintained on an acre of wheat in ordinary sea- 
sons." — Alist)n"s History of Europe, 181.'J-.")1, xviii., p. 11, 



FOOD JIABITS. 119 

again, pitcli their minimum of wages at an oaten diet ; 
the Gei-mans, at a diet of black bread ; while the English 
insist, at tlie very lowest, npon wheaten bread, though un- 
fortunately not so rigidly and persistently but that a con- 
siderable unnecessary mortality at the extremes of life, and 
a lowering of the vital force among large portions of the 
actual workers, take place/ 

It will be seen that, according to this doctrine, the neces- 
sary Avages of every country are fixed by the habits of liv- 
ing among the people, and that at any given time there 
is a point below which wages can not go Avithout diminish- 
ing the supply of labor. This point may change from one 
period to another. A people broken down by industrial 
misfortune or crowded by too rapid propagation may 
temporarily bo driven to a lower and meaner diet ; and in- 
stead of resenting this by Avitliholding their increase, and 
thereby opening the Avay, or at least holding the Avay open, 
to a return to better times and circumstances, may accept 
the degradation to which they are thus violently brought ; 
may lay aside that self-respect and self-control which had 
hitherto kept them from sinking in the social scale, and 
consent to bring children into the Avorld to share their own 
miserable lot. Tims, in a single generation, a new scale 
of wages may be determined, and population adjust itself 
accordingly. Instances of such loAvering of the necessary 
wages of a people are unfortunately not unconnnon. 

* Prof. Cairnes makes a remark in liis Logical Method of Pol. Econ. 
which is liable to be misunderstood. He says : " It is not assorted 
that population in fact increases faster than subsistence ; this would, 
of course, be physically impossible." In one sense of the word in- 
crease, that, namely, which the vital statisticians intend by tlie phrase 
" effective increase," Prof. Cairnes's remark is unexceptionable ; but 
there is nothing to prevent persons from being born into the world in 
large numbers, for whom there is not food enough to keep them alive, 
and who must consequently die prematurely. Most people would say 
that in such cases " population in fact increases faster than subsist- 
ence." Population, of course, can not increase and remain beyond the 
limits of subsistence. 



120 THE WAGES QUESTIONS 

On the other ]iand, a people accustomed to a low and 
mean diet, and to circumstances of filth and squalor, may, 
imder impulses moral or economical, which it is not neces- 
sary to recite, raise themselves to a new standard of living,' 
involvin^^ a new scale of wages, which thereafter hecome 
necessary to them, and which determine population 
accordingly. 

Such a change, involving the substitution of the best 
wheaten bread for that of an inferior quality," passed upon 
the masses of the English people between 1715 and 1765. 
Food wages rose, yet, as population did not increase corre- 
spondingly in consequence, there was a " decided elevation 
in the standard of their comforts and conveniences." Such 
a change has, by the testimony of observers who can not be 
doubted, been passing over Ireland since 1S50 ; and the 
temporary relief from excessive population afforded by 
famine and forced emigration has, under the impulse of 
that terrific sutfering, been taken advantage of to reach a 
somewhat higher standard of living.' A similar change, 
for Avhich an easy opportunity is offered in the rapid in- 
crease of production, through the discovery of new re- 
sources in nature, and new arts and appliances in industry, 
is, I am fain to believe, passing upon not a few of the peo- 
ple of Europe who are taking advantage of the liberality of 
art and nature, not to increase their numbers to the limit of 
their former modes of life, but to Snatch something, at 
least, as a store for the future, and something for greater 
decency and comfort in the present. 



' "Tlie habits of the English and Scotcli laborers of the present day 
arc as widely different from those of their ancestors in the reigns of 
Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. as they now are from the habits 
of the laborers of France and Spain." — J. R. McCulloch, Pol. Econ.,p. 

- Malthus, Pol. Econ. , p. 220. 

' Note, for instance, the very general introduction of cornnieal in 
place, in part, of the potato. (See Mr. Purdy's paper in the Statistical 
Journal, xxv. 459-GO.) 



CHEAP FOOD. 131 

It 13 in tills view of the relation of food to the increase of 
population, that economists have veiy generally been agreed 
in pronouncing cheap food a source of much evil to any 
people that adopts it. This doctrine can not be better stated 
than in the language of Prof. Rogers : 

" A community Avhich subsists habitually on dear food 
is in a position of peculiar advantage when compared with 
another which lives on cheap food ; one, for instance, 
which lives on wheat as contrasted with another which 
lives on rice or potatoes ; and this quite apart from the pru- 
dence or incautiousness of the people. Two instances v/ill 
illustrate this rule. The Irish famine of 1846 was due to 
the sudden disease which aifected the potato. It was 
equally severe in the northern parts of Scotland, and par- 
ticularly in the Western Highlands ; its effects, as we all 
know, were terrible ; but the same disease affected the same 
plant in England. That, however, which was distress to the 
English was death to the Irish and the Highlanders ; they 
had nothing else to resort to,' they subsisted on the cheap- 
est food. ITow, were such a calamity as the potato-dis- 
ease to attack wheat in England, formidable as the conse- 
quences would be, they would not be destructive."" 

JSTow, I (Xii'Q s^y Prof. Rogers would be very slow to ap- 



' " When tlie standard of natural or necessary wages is higli — 
wlien wheat and beef, for example, form the principal part of the food 
of the laborer, and porter and beer the principal part of his drink, he 
can bear to retrench in a period of scarcity. Such a man has room to 
fall ; he can resort to cheaper sorts of food — to barley, oats, rice, and 
potatoes. But he who is habitually fed on the cheapest food has 
nothing to resort to when deprived of it. Laborers placed in this situ- 
ation are absolutely cut off from every resource. You may take from 
an Englishman, but you cannot take from an Irishman. The latter is 
already so low lie can fall no lower ; he is placed on the very verge of 
existence ; his wages, being regulated by the price of potatoes, will 
not buy wheat, or barley, or oats ; and whenever, therefore, the sup- 
ply of potatoes fails, it is next to impossible that he should escape 
falling a sacrifice to famine." — J. 11. McCulloch, Pol. Econ., p. 396. 

''Pol Econ., pp. 70,71. 



122 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

prove the tlicorv of the British Leijfislatiirc in seeking, as late 
as 1774, to (liseoTira<i:;e the useof cotton ^■(»o(ls, ami to resti'iet 
the people to the costlier fabrics of linen, silk, and wool. 
Yet why should not dear clothini»; l)e desired as an ele- 
ment in high neeer.sary wages, as much as dear food ? If 
necessary wages, called 100, be made up of dear food, 00, 
and cheap clothing, 10, is it not the same, in the result, as if 
the constituents were cheap food, 80, and dear clothing, 20 ? 
And, if famine comes, docs not the possibility of going 
down from dear clothing to cheap clothing, from woollen,' 
say, to cotton, or from llax" to cotton, afford a margin, just 
as truly as tlio substitution of cheap for dear food^ If so, 
how does this laudation of dear food for the people con- 
sist with the laudation of the machinery which cheapens the 
clothing f»f the people ? Yet economists who M'ill not 
admit the Avholesale supersednrc of human labor by cot- 
ton and woollen nuichinery in the early part of this 
century, and the consequent throwing out of employment 
of vast numbers of men and women to sink into pauper- 
ism and squalor, to be even a cpialifi cation of the advan- 
tages of introducing machinei-y to cheapen clothing, arc 
unhesitating in their denunciation of cheap food. 



It appears tome that cheap food, just like cheap clothing, 
ought to be, ami but for the folly and wickedness of men 
would be, a blessing to the race ; that, to any free, in- 
dustrious, and self-respecting people, to-day, every cheap- 



'Ono pound of wool manufacturod into flannel costs 3s. Id. ; lib. flax 
into ^^lliI•tin^•, 2.v. Ad.\ 1 lb. cotton into sliirtinn;, l.v. The matcriala 
for a full dress of outer garments if composed of wool would not cost 
less than thirty shillings ; while the same (juantity of material of cot- 
ton, and of more durable quality, costs only 7.v. C(7. to \Qs. (Mr. Ash- 
worth, (juoted by Prof. Levi, Statistical Journal, xxvi. o().) 

"^ One hundred ])ounds of flax will produce about 200 yards of white 
cloth. Out! hundred pounds cotton, oOO yards of pretty equal general 
ajqw'arance, taking a medium set of light cloth as an example. (Mr. 
John Mulholland, Soc. Sc. Trans., 18G7, p. 151.) 



ailPlM' l'(H)l). 128 

(^iiin;^' ol" food in, willioiil, iiiiy (|ii;i.lHic!iJ,i(tii, .'in !Mlv;uitagQ ; 
tliut tlic, iiHo of ojit. hikI coni iiK'iil, iiiul ovon of \\\v. drciulod. 
hih] (1ck|)!s(!(1 pofiilo, liiiH ])(f(!ii w, ]i(^l|), w iiioKf !iii|)orl:inf 
liclp, (() iii;iiiy hi rii;.!;;^'liii^' coiiiiiiiinit icH, .iiid iiuiy Ik', in 
tho saiiK! (l('gi-(!(% (o(l;i,y to JMiy (•(jniiiiiinily wliorts (lic- 
hiiid in iiol; lo('|<(u| ii|) ill J'oudal tc^iiiircH, wlierc iiHliiHiry in 
inKMHiHlniincil, wlicro dasB logislnlimi Iijih iml. |>iil, InJinr iil, 
(liHudvanluf^c, :iiid Mm! iintivo dcHii'uH find UHpinitiouH of jnau 
!i.i'(^ iillowcd fnlr pliiy. Did tiio Huhntitnt ion of ^'- \s^^ jiiid 
Indiiiir'' for 1,1 ic. <l('!ir(u" wlion,!, lend lo dciiTiido iJic, |)('o|»l(! 
of Now-J!^iiju;'liind, ^ 'I'lio qiiontion in ^'i-otowjuo in itB 
al)Hi)i'dil.y. It, left llio more wcnJili nnd L'lJtor 1o bo a])])liod 
to lii/^'licr iiHCH tlinn tiliin<i,' tlio belly. Il, ;dlo\v('(| jimt ho 
noicli I ho inorc, to lie, doiio in tho way <»r iiiiddng' decent 
and coinfortiijtlo lioinori; of oi'octin^ cIiiiitIich and Bcbool- 
Imjubch, and Hiipporfin^- tbo (»fHcoB of i'<'li;.^'ioiiH iind Bornilar 
iriBtruction ; of clcnrini^' tbo ^';roiind, o|iciiiii,^' roiidw, Jiiid 
l)iiildiii^' brid^'oB; of iniikin^' ani|)l(( |»ri»viHioii for old fi.<^o, 
foi' t.lio (iiidownicnt of dc|>('nd(Mit iiKiiilx^i-H of tbo fuiiiily, 
Mild for Ibo (M|iii|nii(nt of tbo yoiin;j; lor llicir Bti'U^gle, in 
tboirtiii'ii, witli iiiitdi-o jiiid witb iiion. It aHowod tlus cliild 
to go to Hcbool, not ^•nid^iiij^' tlio wa^cB bo niiii,'bt earn l)y 
Starvinfjf bin mind.' Il, nllowod tbo wilo loid tbo diiii^'litor 
to koo]) tbo boiiBc^ inakinj,^' poHBiblo tliiit ntoi'lin/^- H(!nHo of 
docoiK'y wliicli luiH boon tbo navor of JMow-J'^ugland lifu. 
Tliat iB wlint tbo HiibHliliilion of cboapGr food did for early 
Now-l*]n^land, and vvliat it !ni<j;lit (b) and wordd do amoiifi^ 
any pcopjo taiiglit to fear (ujd and not niitn, aceuHtoinod 
to deeciit bebtngin^H, and ftlioriBliin;^' goiKirrtiiH aspirations, 
.lias tho use of tho potato by tlio Irisli in America, so far 

' Nopniiill HiHTilicc, I'di- jioor CoIKh. Mr. Uoiild in liiri vmy iirl.(in*Ht- 
in^ llopor), on llic, ( idinlilion ol' l,lni lii<luhlrin,l <-'liiHH<fHol' Hwil/nrliuid, in 
1H72, ('hUiiiiiI<<h IIhi iiv<M'iif,fo Iomh to worliiiif^ faniilloH from r<'(|nirinpf 
\\\{\ Hcliool altrndiuico of cjiildi'ifn al)ov(* Iwidvn y<tarft of ago to 1)0 £10 
to £\)i 'j)ii' till v'li'iii, for fiiu'li cliild ho willidrawn froiri labor (p. !Mi)). 
Su(.'h OXlXMiHi^H, vvIkmi iniuld " ndcf^hhio-y," aro a. diMil li<i(,l,(ir limn dear 
food, 



124 THE WAGES QUESTION, 

us it Las been used — audit lias beeinised very freely — been 
in any sense or in any degree an injnry to llieni 'i Far 
otherwise: it has enabled llieni to ae([uii-e their little home- 
steads' the more ra})idly ; it has enabled them to pnt tea, 
cotFee, and sn<i:ar on their table ; to elothe their wives de- 
cently on week days and handsomely on the Sabbath ; to 
give their children their time at school, and send them 
there with shoes and stockings" on their feet that they 
may not be ashamed before the American children. Snch 
lias been the inflnence of the potato on the fortnnes of the 
Irish in the United States ; and there is no reason, aside 
from the oppression, sitoliatioii, and proscription ])ractised 
for many generations by the English in Ireland, Avliy the 
same cause should not have ])roducc(l the same effect there, 
.lusticc^ and c(|iial rights have made the Irish industrious 
and provident ; and in such a condition any lowering of 
tlie cost of snbsistence is a distinct, nn([naliiied advantage. 
In America the Irisli, no matter how newly arrived, have 
shown a passionate eagerness to accpiire homesteads, for 



' I havo b(>foro mo tlio t;\x and vuliuition lists of a townsliip in Massa- 
cliusctts containinji: ii sniart uuuiufacturiuiir villagv. 'l"ho total ])opula- 
tiou of the township was about iJoOO. The Irish males above 18 years 
of ao-e numbereil 220. Of those, 128 imid taxes upon projierty. The 
total amount of estate owned by these 128 Irishmen, (jrliifiirr of all 
■money in smniif/,s-b(iii/i-ii (the deposits of these institutions beini^ taxed 
en manfte by the State without distinction of ownership), was ^^108,560, 
being an av(>rage to eaeh holder of $1278. 

' " Custom has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England. 
The ]ioorest creditable person of either sex would In* ashamed to appear 
in public without them. In Scotland custom has rendered them a 
necessary of life to the lowest order of men, but not to the same order 
of wonuMi, who may, without any discredit, walk about barefooted. 
In I'^nince lliey arc necessaries neither to men nor to women, the low- 
est rank of both sexes appeal iut;: there ]>ublicly, without any discredit, 
sometimes in wooden shoes, and sometimes barefooted." — Adam Smith, 
Wealth of Nations, ii. 407. 

Mr. Senior says of shoes: " When a Scotchman ri.ses f rom thi- lowest 
to the middling classes of society, they become to him necessaries. 
He wars them to jircserve, not his feet, but kis station in life."— Vol. 
Econ. , pp. 36, 37. 



TEE STANDARD OF LIVING. 125 

which they will labor and for which they will deny them- 
selves. Cheap food here has helped them to accomplish 
this object more easily and quickly. Cheap food in Ire- 
land did not tend in the same direction, but the rather 
allowed and excited a dangerous increase of population : 
and this for reasons which the public conscience of Eng- 
land has lon<j^ reco^i-nized. 

All this potato-philosophy is based upon the assump- 
tion that, excepting small expenditures for clothing and 
shelter,' nothing can bs made indispensable or "necessary" 
to the workingman except his food ; and that his food 
will consist practically of a single staple article, the cost 
of which will govern his whole expenditure ; and hence, 
if that staple article be cheapened, the consecpiences pre- 
dicted by Prof. Rogers will, in the persistence of tlie sexual 
instinct^*, inevitably ensue. But we in the United States 
know very well, first, that a cheap staple ai'ticle of food 
may be compatible with a lavish expenditure on garnishes, 
fruits, condiments, relishes, and drinks ;'■* and, secondly, that 
a great many things may be made indispensable to the 
working classes beyond their food ; that, moreover, the 
higher the industrial desires rise, the more tenacious and 
persistent they are ; that tastes, when once inspired, are 
not only more costly than appetites, but are far stronger ;* 

* " The worst-paid class ia England, tlie agricultural laborers, ex- 
pend about two thirds of their revenues in food and one third in other 
objects." — Jones, Pol. Econ. , p. 99. 

Mr. Mill makes this strange remark respecting " the workpeople," 
having, presumably, those of England in mind : " They are not the 
principal customers, 'i/"cM6'^o??iers «^ aW, of most branches of manufac- 
ture." It would puzzle one to tell of what branches of manufacture the 
workpeople of the United States are not customers. 

** Wheat-Hour is very cheap in the United States, corn and oat 
meal relatively much cheaper. The cost of these articles can scarcely 
be said to govern the expenditure of an American family. Many a 
mechanic spends aa much for milk, butter, and eggs as he does for 
flour and meal. 

'' " The great preventive check is the foar of lo.iing docencien." — 
Senior, Pol. Econ., p. 38. 



/ 



126 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

that the industrial desires are constantly multiplying and 
intensifying among a people where political freedom and 
social ambition exist, such desires extending themselves 
rapidly even among new comers or persons just released 
from thraldt)m ; that decent and comfortable homes, with 
yards and gardens, schoolhouses and churches, may be- 
come just as " necessary" in such a connnunity as food 
and drink ; that parents in such a community will gladly 
deny themselves the wages their children might earn, in 
order to send them to school, and the husband gladly deny 
himself the wages his wife might earn, in order that she 
may " keep the house.'" AYhen such desires and aspirations 
are once enkindled, any cheapening of the food of the 
people merely releases just so much wealth to be bestowed 
on other and higher objects. 

Let me not be understood as objecting to the proposition 
that the use of the potato by any people as the sole article 
of food is injurious and dangerous, but only as taking ex- 
ception to the reason assigned therefor. It is because this 
crop is a most precarious one, and because the potato, while 
forming an admirable element in a diversified diet, is not 

' The proportion of breadwinners to dependants will of course vary 
greatly with the habits and dispositions of the people in the respects 
mentioned in the text. 

Tlie results of Cantillon's computations are thus stated by Adam 
Smith : " Mr. Cantillon seems to suppose that the lowest species of 
common laborers must everywhere earn at least double their own main- 
tenance in order that, one Avith another, they may be enabled to bring 
up two children ; the labor of the Avife, on account of her necessary 
attendance on the children, being supposed no more than sufficient 
to provide for herself. But one half the children born, it is com- 
puted, die before the age of manhood. The poorest laborers, thercforr , 
according to this account, must, one with another, attempt to rear at 
least four children in order that two may have an equal chance of liv- 
ing to that age. But the necessary maintenance of four children, it is 
supposed, may be nearly equal to that of one man." — Pol. Econ. i. 71. 
The rudeness of these computations appears on the face. In Belgium, 
in 1856, 49.3 per cent of the population were reported as pursuing 
gainful occupations ; in the United States, in 1870, only 82.4 per cent ; 
in England and Wales, in 1871, 51 per cent ; in Scotland, 4o.7 per cent. 



TEE STANDABD OF LIVING. 127 

fitted physiologically to ba ■ the sole nutriment of human 
beings, that its exclusive use is undesirable. So far as it 
is to be used, its cheapness is a recommendation ; and if 
all other articles of food used with it could be cheapened 
to its level, it would be so much the better in any commu- 
nity where laws are free and education general. Given 
these, the native desires and aspirations of men will find 
objects enough' on which to expend the labor which is 
released from the slavery of ministering to the merely 
animal necessities of the body. I say " slavery," for that 
labor is only truly free which is exercised as the result 
of a choice. So far as a man is driven by brutal hunger to 
work he differs not much from a slave ; when he works 
because he chooses exertion rather than privation of things 
aOTeeable and honorable, his labor is that of the free man. 



* Contrast tlie Swiss and tlie Russian. Consul Egerton reports that 
an incentive to labor is tlie great desideratum in Russia. " In the 
truly agricultural districts the peasant, earning enough for his wants 
during the summer months, remains idle throughout the winter." — Re- 
port of 1873 (Textile Factories), p. 92, note. So much for a land where 
the people are universally ignorant, and are despotically governed. 
In Switzerland, to the contrary, Mr. Gould reports, " Men who during 
the short tourist season frequently earn as guides, porters, etc. , enough 
to keep themselves and their families in comfort during the remain- 
der of the year, may nevertheless be seen in winter willingly exposing 
themselves to the severest hardships for the small sum of a franc or 
two a day." — Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1872, 
p. 346. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

THE WAGES OF THE LABOKEK AKE PAIP OIT OF THE TKO- 
DUCT OF Ills INDl'STKY.' 

A POPULAR tlieorvof wa2:es, of which we shall have here- 
after to speak, is based upon the <issuinptioii that wages 
are paid out of capital, the saved results of the industry of 
the past. Hence, it is argued, capital must furnish the mea- 
sure of wages. On the contrary, I hold that wages are, in a 
philosophical view of the subject, paid out of the product of 
present industry, and hence that production furnishes the 
true measure of wages. The ditference may be found to 
be an important one ; and I will therefore state the grounds 
of my belief. 

An employer pays wages to purchase labor, nc t toexpc;nl 
a fund of which he may be in possession. He purchases 
labor not because he desires to keep it employed, but as 
a means to the production of wealth. lie produces wealth 
not for the sake of producing it, but with a view to a 
profit to himself, individually, in that production. Doubt- 
less there is a satisfaction in conferring benefits on the de- 
pendent, a pride in direv.'ting great operations, an enthusi- 
asm of work, which make up a part of the compensation 
of many employers; but it is evident that these can not be 
relied upon to any great extent as motives to the systematic 

* The substance of this and the following chapter appeared in the 
North American Review for January, 1875; art., The Wage-Fund 
Theory. 



WAGES PAID FROM PRODUCTION. 139 

and sustained jjroduction of wealth tlirougli wage-labor. 
Individual jorotit is, and must remain, the great reason for 
production. If a j)erson have wealth, that of itself consti- 
tutes no reason at all to him why he should expend any 
portion of it on labor, on machinery, or on materials. It 
is only as he sees that he can increase that wealth through 
production that the impulse to employ it in those direc- 
tions is felt. But for the profits by which he hopes thus 
to increase his store, it would be alike easier and safer 
for him to keep his wealth at rest than to put it in motion 
for the benefit of others. 

It is true that an employer may for a time produce with- 
out profits, or even at a loss ; but this will be for the sake 
of holding together his working force, or his body of cus- 
tomers, in the hope of better times. when he can make him- 
self good for present hardship, or because he has formed 
contracts or engagements which law or business-honor 
compel him to fill at any sacrifice. These cases do not 
constitute a substantial exception to the principle that the 
motive to the purchase of labor is found in the profits of 
production. 

But again it is evident that an employer will be dis- 
posed to produce, within the limits of the agencies at his 
command, all that he can produce at a profit to himself. 
So long as additional profits are to be made by the employ- 
ment of additional labor, so long a sufficient reason for 
production exists ; when profit is no longer expected, the 
reason for production ceases. At this point the mere fact 
that the employer has capital at his command no more 
constitutes a reason why he should use it in production 
when he can get no profits, than the fact that the laborer 
has legs and arms constitutes a reason why he should work 
when he can get no wages. 

We repeat, the employer purchases labor with a view to 
the product of the labor ; and the kind and amount of that 
product determine what wages he can afford to i)ay. He 
must, in the long run, pay less than that product, less by a 



180 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

sum which is to constitute liis own profits. If tluit pro- 
duct is to bo i^reatcr, ho can alTord to pay more ; if it is to 
be sniaUer, he must, for his own interest, pay less. It is, 
then, for the sake of future production that the hiborers 
are emjikned, not at all because the employer has posses- 
sion of a fund which he nnist disburse ; ami it is the value 
of the product, such as it is likely to prove, which de- 
termines the amouut of the wao'es that can be ]xnd, i\ot at 
all the amount of wealth which the employer has in posses- 
sion or can ci>mmand. Thus it is production, not capital, 
which furnishes the motive for employment and the 
measure of wages. 

But it may be said, we grant that wages are really paid 
out of the product of current industry, and that capital 
only affects wages as it lirst alfects production, so that 
wages stand related to product in the first degree and 
to capital in the second degree only; still, does not produc- 
tion bear a certain and necessary ratio to capital i and 
hence nuiy not the measure of wages be derived from cap- 
ital virtually — though not, it is true, directly^through 
its determination of the product ? By no means. It 
would be easy to adduce many successive reasons why 
capita] bears no certain or constant ratio to production, 
but two will abundantly serve our turn. 

(a) The ratii> which capital bears to the product of indus- 
try varies, all other thingsremainingequal, with the scanti- 
ness or abundance of natural ageuts. Que hundred laborers 
having the use of a capital which we will represent by Kte 
mav not, in one set of circumstances, be able to ]n-oduce 
anv where near twice as nnich as 50 laborers using the 
sjnne amoimt of capital ; or, under a different set of cir- 
cumstances, they may be able to produce far more than 
twice as nnich. AVith unlimited natural agents, as in new 
countries like America and Australia, the 100 may, through 
the minuter subdivision of labor and the more effective 
co-operation which their numbers allow, produce twice as 
much as 50 with a capital of l^.r, or as 00 with a capital 



RATIO OF CAPITAL TO PRODUCT. i;jl 

of y)x. On the other hand, with limited natural agents, 
after the condition of " diminishing returns" has been 
reached, the 100 may be able to produce only twice as 
much as 50 with a capital of 8,^, or as 40 Matli a capital of 
10a?. 

(b) The differences in the ratio between capital and 
the product of industry which are caused by the economi- 
cal quality of a people, their intelligence, sobriety, and 
thrift, their capacity for self-direction and industrial or- 
ganization, their manual dexterity and mechanical aptitude, 
are greater even than those due to the bounty of nature. 
Griven machinery, raw materials, and a year's subsistence 
for 1000 laborers, does it make no difference with the 
annual product whether those laborers are Englishmen or 
East-Indians ? Certainly if only one quarter part of what 
has been adduced under the head of the efficiency of 
labor be valid, the differences in the product of industiy 
arising out of differences in i\\G industrial quality of dis- 
tinct communities of laborers are so great as to prohibit us 
from making use of capital to determine the amount that 
can be expended in any year or series of years in the pur- 
chase of labor. 

I have no wish to disparage the importance of the service 
rendered in production by capital, the saved results of the 
industry of the past ; but I firmly deny that it furnishes 
the measure of wages. 

But while wages must in any philosophical view of the 
subject be regarded as paid out of the product of current 
industry, wages are, to a very considerable degree, in all 
communities, advanced^ out of capital, and this from the 
very necessity of the case ; while in those countries which 
have accumulated large stores of wealth, wages are, in fact, 
very generally, if not universally, so advanced, equally for 



^ " EUe doit etri avancee par le capita'Iiste et le retrouver, par con- 
sequent, clans la vileur du produit obtenu." — A. E. Cherbuliez, Precis 
de la Science Economique, i. 415. 



y^ 



133 Tin: WAGES QUESTION. 

tlie convenience of employers nnd of tlie employed. Yet 
even where the entire amount of the weekly or monthly 
pay-roll is taken out of a store of wealth previously <^athered 
and husbanded, it is not capital out of which wages are 
borrowed, but production out of which they are iinally 
paid, to which wc must look to find their true measure.' 

I have said that in all connnunities wages are, by the very 
necessity of the case, advanced to a considerable extent out 
of capital. It is only in a few industries, mainly of the class 
termed '' extractive," and in these only when pursued 
under circumstances peculiarly favorable, that the laborer 
can e;it of the ])ruduct of his labor for the day. The fish- 
erman, indeed, or the hunter may live from hand to 
mouth, catching and killing as he eats, though always at 
the imminent risk of privation and even of starvation. 
But the tiller of the soil nmst abide in faith of a harvest, 
through months of ])lougliiug, sowing, and cuhivating ; and 
his industry is oidy ]>ossible as food has been stored up from 
the crop of the previous year. The mechanical laborer is 
also removed by a longer or a shorter distance from the 
fruition of his labor. 80 that almost universally, it may be 
said, the laborer as he works is fed out of a store gathered 
by previous toil, and saved l)v the self-denial of the posses- 
sor. The extent of this in'o^-ision, thus made the primary 
condition of industry, may be rudely measured by the inter- 
val between harvests. And this provision is one which is 
not made without great sacrifice, even in the most advanced 
stao:es of industrv. Yast and varied as is the accunmlated 



' Mr. F. 1). Longc, u\ lib Refutatiou of the Was-o-Fuiul Theory, 
insists on this distinction. Of the wealth or cajiital used " for the 
maintenance of laborers ■while employed in jiroducinc^ new goods or 
wealth," he says, it " may come either from their (the laborers') own 
resources or those of their employers, or be borrowed from bankers or 
elsewhere." Of the wealth '■ to be nsed for the purchase of their work," 
he says, it " may consist of funds belonging to the consumer or of 
funds belonging to the employer, or both, or may even be taken out of 
the very goods which the laborer.3 produce, or their money value." 



SUBSISTENCE ADVANCED BY CAPITAL. 133 

wealtli of the most liiglily-civ^ilizsd com'n.Viiities, the store 
of food wliich must he kept on hand to meet the necessities 
of tlic year's subsistence constitutes no insignificant j^art 
of tlie aggregate vahie ; wliile among nations which com- 
jjrise, probably, two thirds of the human race, so severe is 
the struggle with nature, so hard are the conditions of life, 
so many its enemies, that, after all the painful accumula- 
tions of centuries, spring remains as it was in the days of 
Alknian, " the season of short fare," when the progress of 
the growing crop is eagerly watched, not with eyes greedy 
of gain, but with eyes hollow from hunger.' 

To the extent of a year's subsistence, then, it is necessary 
that some one should stand ready to make advances to the 
wage-laborer out of the products of past industry. All 
sums so advanced come out of capital ; but it is important 
to note that it need not be the capital of the employer. 
The laborer himself may be a capitalist to this extent. 
Where the reward of industry is as liberal as it is in America 
and Australia, there is no reason why a laborer should not 
save enough out of three or live years' wages to be a year 
beforehand, and thus, so far as the employer is concerned, 
that man's labor be thereafter freed from this condition 
of provisional maintenance. Moreover, even where the 
laborers' dependence on the employer for the year's sub- 
sistence is entire, it should be clearly noted (for it has been 
strangely overlooked,^ with most unfortunate results in the 



* " Tliere ij in Ireland," saya Aliion, " what ii called tli3 ' starving 
peason/ which is about six weeks before the ' new harvest.'" — Hist. 
Europe, xxi. 204. 

'^ " A very little consideration will render it evident that laborers 
whilst engaged in any particular industry can not live upon the com- 
modity which their labor is assisting to j^roduce. The ploughman 
who tills the soil from which in the following autumn the harvest will 
be gathered, is /e(? with the wealth which Ids master has saved; or, 
ill other words, the master pays his laborer's ivages from the wealth 
which he has previously saved." — Prof. Fawcett, Political Economy, 
p. 19. 

Here we find asserted or assumed, (1) the necessity of the laborer fcr 



134 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

popular theory of wages) that this by no means involves 
the payment of his entire wages in advance of the harvest- 
ing of the crop or the marketing of the goods. There is 
nothing in the need the laborer has of provisional mainte- 
nance which defeats his claim to a payment, over aiid 
above the mere cost of his subsistence, out of the product 
when completed. It may be that poor Piers, the plongli- 
man, must, as Professor Fawcett says, depend daily nutil 
harvest upon the squire for bread out of the crop of the 
last year ; but surely that constitutes no reason why Piers 
should not at harvest receive some sheaves as his own. 
And in the case of all laborers of a higher class, whos(3 
wages may be perhaps twice or three times tlie cost of 
their bare subsistence, it is evident that, in countries where 
capital is scarce, the advances which are likely to be made 
to them during the year will leave a very considerable por- 
tion of the wages to be taken out of the product at the close 
of the year. 

But how largely, in fact, ara wages advanced out of capi- 
tal ? In old countries, to a very great extent certainly. 
Yet even in these tliere is but a small proportion of 
cases where wages are paid of tener than once a week — that 
is, where the laborer does not trust his employer with six 
days' work. And in some exceptional industries it hap- 
pens that the employer realizes on \ih product' in a shorter 



maintenance while the crop is growing ; (2) his entire dependence on 
the employer for that maintenance ; (3) the natural equivalency of 
subsistence and wages. 

' I may mention, in illustration, the case of transportation compa- 
nies, owning railroads, canals, steamboats, or coaches. The employees 
of such companici in the United States number hundreds of thou- 
sands, and they are rarely paid by the day, commonly by the week or 
month. Yet the companies collect all their fares for passage and a 
portion of their charges for freight, daily. They are thus always 
in debt, often to a vast amount, to their laborers (using that term in its 
generic sense) for services which have been rendered to them, and of 
which they have availed thenis(;lves to the full extent. So that the 



EMPLOYERS IN DEBT TO LABORERS. 135 

time than this, so that the laborer is not only paid out of 
the product of his industry, but actually advances to the 
employer a portion of the capital on which he operates. 
Quite as common, probably, even yet in countries which 
we may call old, as weekly payments are monthly pay- 
ments ; and here the probability that the laborer may re- 
ceive his wages out of the price of this marketed product 
increases with the quadrupled time given the employer to 
dispose of it. Yet even here the cases are doubtless excep- 
tional where the employer does not have to " stand out," 
for a longer or a shorter time, of the amount which he 
pays in wages, though always, be it remembered, in the 
expectation of a reimbursement out of the product when 
marketed, the anticipated price of the product determin- 
ing the amount which he can safely thus advance. 

In new countries, by which we mean those to which 
men have gone with the industrial ideas and ambitions of 
older communities, but with an amount of capital which, 
from the necessity of the case, is niorG or less inadequate 
to the undertakings for which their skill and labor qualify 
them, the wages of labor are paid only partially out of 
capital. The history of our own country so amply illus- 
trates this statement that we need not go elsewhere for 
examples. From the first settlement of the colonies down 
to the discovery of gold in California, laborers, whether in 
agriculture or in manufactures, were, as a rule, hired by 
the year, and paid at the end of the year. Bare subsistence 
might be furnished by the employer meanwhile ; small 
amounts of money might be advanced " for accommoda- 
tion ;" the laborer's tax bill or doctor's bill might be settled 
by the employer ; but these payments were not to such an 
extent (except in case of protracted sickness or sudden mis- 
fortune) but that the employer was always in debt to his 
laborer. 

companies are virtually carrying on their operations on capital a por- ^^ 
tion of which is advanced by their own employees. Many other ex- 
amples might be given. 



V.m THE WAGES QUESTION. 

I have before me a considerable collection of accounts 
taken from the books of fanners in different sections as late 
as 1851. These show the hands charged with advances of 
the most miscellaneous character. There are charges for 
grain and salted meats from the product of the previous year, 
for cash for minor j)ersonal expenses, for bootmaker's bills, 
grocer's bills, apothecary's bills, doctor's bills, and even town- 
tax bills, settled by the employer, for the use of teams for 
liauling wood for the laborer, or breaking up liis garden 
in the S])ring. Yet in general the amount of such advances 
does not exceed one third, and it rarely reaches one half, of 
the stipulated wages of the year. ]N^ow it is idle to speak 
of wages thus paid as coming out of capital. At the time 
these contracts were made the wealth wliich was to pay 
these wages was not in existence. At the time these ser- 
vices were rendered, that wealth was ]iot in existence. It 
came into existence only as the result of those contracts 
and the rendering of those services. 

]S"ot less distinctly did this system of paying wages pre- 
vail in the department of manufacturing industry during 
the same period. Extensive inquiries have satisfied me 
that manufacturers in New-England did not generally 
leave off paying their workmen by the year until after 
1S54 or 1855. Some of the more successful were able to 
make the change to quarterly or monthly payments as early 
as 1851. A gentleman conducting one of tlie largest, 
oldest, and most successful manufacturing establishments 
in Massachusetts informs me that, up to the earliest of the 
dates mentioned, his firm paid their workmen yearly ; 
and any liand requiring an advance of wages on work done 
was charged interest at current rates to the end of the 
year. 

Now in this there was nothing unjust or ungenerous. 
Such an arrangement was the very condition on whicli 
alone the industry could bo prosecuted, on which alone 
employment could be given. Capital was scarce, because 
the country was comparatively new ; and if wages had been 



PRODUCTION THE MEASURE OF WAGES. 137 

measured "by capital, wages must liave been low ; but at 
the same time production was large/ because natural 
agents were copious and efficient, and labor was intelligent 
and skilful, and as it is production, not capital, which 
affords the measure of wages, wages were high ; but the 
workmen had to wait for them till the crop was harvested 
or the goods sold. And this they gladly did, and never for 
an instant suspected they were being paid out of capital ; 
indeed, they knew better, for they had seen growing under 
their hands that in which they were finally paid. In the 
Middle States the change referred to came a few years 
later than in IN'ew-England ; yet by the outbreak of the 
civil war monthly or weekly payment of wages had j^i'oba- 
bly become more general than 2:>ayi;nent by the year. 

I^arther to the West and South the change to monthly 
and weekly jjayments has, in many sections, not yet begun. 
In these parts of our country the payment of wages 
out of capital is scarcely more common than it was in 
jNTew-England a hundred years ago. The employer ad- " 
vances to the laborer such provisions and cash as are 
absolutely required from time to time ; but the " settle-- 
ment " does not take ]3lace until the close of the season or 
of the year, and the final payment is often deferred until 
the crop is not only harvested but sold. 

But whether wages are advanced out of capital in whole, 
or in part, or not at all, it still remains true that it is the 
product to which the employer looks to ascertain the 
amount which he can afford to pay : the value of the pro- 
duct furnishes the measure of wages, ^^^len the em- 
ployer shall pay is a financial question ; what he shall pay 
is the true industrial question with which we have to do in 
treating wages. This is determined by the efficiency of 
labor under the conditions existing at the time and place. 



' " Capitalists and laborers receive large remuneration in America 
because their industry produces largely." — J. E. Cairnes, Some Lead- 
ing Principles, etc., p. 462. 



(MIATTKK IX. 

TUKKK IS NO W.VOE-FUND IRUKJSPEOTIVK OV VUV. NlMr.KlI 
ANO INinSl'KlAl, ijr.M.irY OK l.vr.OlwKKS. 

AVr o;in not well ii"o farther in oiirdisvnis>ioii withiMit ei'in- 
sidoriuii" a tlioorv o( wajivs wh'u'U has heoii vorv ii'oiuM'ally 
JU'i'optoil bv the ]H>litieal iv'ouoniists o( the Kn^■lish si'liool, 
luunolv, that o( a Wai^e-FuntL 

Tiio doi'triuo is in snbstaneo as t\>llov.'s : 

There is, for any evnmtrv, at any time, a sinn of Mealth 
set apart for the payment of wauvs. This fund is a por- 
tion of the agurepite eapital oi the eomitry. The ratio 
between the agji-regate eapital ami the portion devoted to 
the ]\iyment of "Wrtg'es is nt,^t neeess^irily always the Siinie. 
It may vary, from time to time, with the eonditions of in- 
dustry and the habits of the people ; but at any iriven time 
the amount i>f the wai;e-fm\d, \mder the ei>nditious exist- 
iuii:, is^ determined in the amount oi eapital. 

Tlie \va*i-i»-fmiil, therefoiv, may be iireater or less at 
another time, but at the time taken it is definite. The 
annnmt oi it ean not be inereased by foree of law in* of 
pnblie o]nnion, or thnn\ii"h sympathy and eom passion on 
the part of en\phn-ers. or as the result of appeals or 
etYorts t>n the part of the workiui:: elasses.' 



' " That which pays for lalior ia every country is a certain portion 
of m'tuixlly-jvcHnumilatod capital, wliich can not ln> increased by the 
]>i>>posed action of iji>vernnient. nor l\v the intiuence of public opinii>n. 
uor bv a>nibinations aiuons;' the workmen themselves, 'rhere is also 



THE WAOE-FUND THEORY. 130 

Tlio Sinn BO destined to tlio payDient of" wages is distri- 
buted by competition. If one obtains more, another must, 
for tliat reason, receive less, or be kept out of employment 
altogether. Laborers arc paid out of this sum, and out of 
this alone. The whole of that sum is distributed without 
loss ; and the average amoimt received by each laborer is, 
therefore, precisely determined by the ratio existing be- 
tween the wage-fund and the numljer of laborers, or, as 
some writers have preferred to call it, between capital and 
population.' 

The wage-fund having at any given time been deter- 
mined for that time, the rate of wages will be according to 
the number of persons then ap})lying for employment.' 
If they be more, wages will be low ; if they be fewer, 
wages will be high. 

I have stated this doctrine mimitcly, with something of 
iteration, and with full ([notations, in order to avoid all 
suspicion of misrepresenting that which I propose to assail. 
An excellent summary of the doctrine is that given by Mr. 
John Stuart Mill, in the Fortnightly Keview for May, 1869, 
as follows : 

" There is supposed to be, at any given instant, a sum of 
wealth which is unconditionally devoted to the payment of 
wages of labor. This sum is not regarded as unalterable, 
for it is augmented by saving, and increases with the pro- 



in every country a certain number of laborers, and this number can not 
be dimini.sliod l)y the proposed action of government, nor by public 
opinion, nor by combinations amonq; themselves. There is to bo a di- 
vision now among all these laborers of the portion of cai>ital actually 
tliore present." — A. L. Perry, Pol. Ef;on., p. 123. 

' " Th(i circulating capital of a country is its Avage-fund. Honce if 
wo desire to calculate the average monoy-wages rocoivod by eacli 
laborer, wo havci simply to divide the amount of this capital by the 
number of the laboring population." — H. Fa wcott. Economic Position 
of the British Laborer, p. 120. 

* " TJm demand for labor consists of the whole circuldtin.f/ capital of 
the cotiritry. * * * * The supply is the whole luboriny popula- 
tion."— i. S. Mill, Fortnightly Keview, May, 1800. 



p;i'i'HS of \\t'!iltli ; lull il is reasoned upon as al anv <;i\'eM 
lUdlueiil a |ut'tleleiiiiiiieil amoiiiil. Mi^vr lliaii (lial aiuoimt 
it is UHHUiiied llie \\ a^e.^ I'eetMX *.ii^' eluss eaii not possihly 
(lividt^ innoii:;' tlieui ; dial aiiionnt, and no le.-^s, iliey can not 
lull olitaili. So llial llie Miiii lo liedixided l>eiiir; fixed, llie 
\va;i,'os i>r baeii depi'iul solel\ on llie di\ isor, llie niinili(M' of 
partii'ipants." 

The doedine of I he \\ aj-'e fund has found wide ai'cept- 
aiiee tui liolh sides {>[' the Allanlie. The nalui'al history iif 
the notion lUi which il rt-sls is not ohseiire. It j^'rew out 
»>f the eiuidilion o( alTaics which iv\is|»'d in luii^'land durin;;' 
and ininiediali'l V snhsei|ueiil lo llie Napok'onie wars. Two 
thiii«;s wi re then noted. I'iisl, eapitalluid heeoine acciiniii- 
iaU'd in the isl.and lo such an e\lent that eniplovers found no 
(^linaiiciah dilliciillv in paviiii;' llieii" laboi'ors h\ ihe inoiith, 
the we(>lv,or the day, insUvid o{ reiiiiiriui;' tluMiiloawait the 
fruilitui K^'i their lalutr in the harvested or marketed proihiet. 
Si'eoiulU , the waj^'es wi'i'i-, in fai-t, i;t'iierall\ .so low that the\' 
furnished no nu>i'(* than a ltart< snhsisttMU'(\ w hiU^ the ein- 
|»lo\nient olTiM'eil was so I'estricted that an inereasi> in tlu< 
numher o( lahorers had the i-lVei-| to thriiw some out t*!' 
eni|>loviiuM»t or to reduce the rattMif \vai;i's ftu' all. Out 
K^i these tiling's tlu> wai;'e fniul thi>oi'y was put toii"etlu>r. 
W'a^'os ari> paid out o\' capital, and the rale is detenniiu-d 
hy the ratio lu^lwt'iMi capital an^l popiilati»>n. 

r»olh the fju'ts ohsiM'yed wen^ ai-iMdeiital, not essiaiti.-d. 
Wa^i^'es in lMii;land were paid »Mit i>{ capital luH-anse i-apital 
\\m\ heeome ahmnlant, and tanploytMvs could just as well as 
not pay their laborers .as soon as tlu' servi^u' wjis rendi'ied. 
In the I'nili'd Stales,' al the s.mie time, eiiiplo\ i-rs w e;v 



' "• 'V\w spii'iul of this tliuuluo lu ll»o I'uiUil States Is >u>t to Im ox 
plahiod hi tho .sauu' way. It would soom t»> liuvt'luHMi acf»<|>toil, so fur 
as it l»us lu>«Mi ao»oiit<'»l, iijion tlu' autluulty of tl\o Kui^lish oamomists. 
roitahitv tlio coiuritious wlilcli tvavt* l>o»>n ia>t«>il as provalUu>;' iiv Kui'- 
Imul ihuiivi;' tlio jualokl wUou tho lal>oit>r's sulkslst»a\»'o oamo to ho 
UlcutitU'vl with liis waives, luuo at (>o tii\»o l>oou known in tho Vnittnl 
Stall's, lli'io Uu' people ha\o not lu'on .sliut i>ut t'i\>iu tlu< \a\\d ; tho 



WAaiiJf! /.y rm-j uyrrun ,s"/'. i TAj.sf. 14 1 

paying tlicir l.'ilxircrM l:ii'o'(>i' \V!i<;'t'S, l»iit ohligino- tli(-iii |(> 
wait I'oi- llic v\ li(»l(i or i\. (■(msidcniltlc |i:irl, till \\\o, product 
Hlumid ho liiirv(>Hlod or niiii'kctcd. In llii^ lliiiti'd Slntrs, 
(licrcrorc, llic iiitl iislfidi (■(iiidil ions were inoiu^ l':i\dr;dil(i 
lo llic I»ji3 iiH'iit: of Wii^'cs, wliiK^ in l*'ni!,'liiiid iUo J/jKnicJal 
(•()n<lilions \\'on\ mow r.iNdrnhlc. r»iit il is tlio indiiMlrial 
(•(indilions wliicli dclciMuint^ (Ik^ :Mniiuiil of VVJI|>'1'S, (Jui 
nncOHHfii'iiV'^, coniroi-ls, and lu.\iiri(\s wliicli tlu* liil)(>i'oi- vo- 
ciMvos; tlio liiiancinl condiliitns only dc^tcM'niinc- Mui nianncM- 
and lime of pavnifiil, w liclJicr at tinco <>i" at a, lultn'o da\', 
wlu'llicr in money or in ^'oodn, clc 

Again, tlio fart tlnd: in Knglund, al I lie time lliis dor 
trine Bpmng n|>, an incroaso of tlic ninnlior of lahoror.s 



luboiiii/^' claHHim liavo Iwum hIjUi Iu iiiako and havd made* va.Hl. adcuimi- 
lalloriH, luid llic gwnt l)ulk of vvaf>'ert liavn. hIiico {ho lirnl. hoIiNhmciiI, of 
tliu coiiiilry, IxMtii |MrKl,not out of ca|illiii, Iml <iiil, ol' {.\\^^ fni\i\>\\^{vi\ |in) 
diiiMi wlicii l»ai'V('Ml<'d or luarlu'lod. 

" 'I'lm \vni^(< I'liiid h<'i'mn In liav(^ Ixmui courtidorod, WO know iiol. why, a, 
]tillai- ill llid l(uii|>l(' ol' I'rcr Iradi'. (Vrtainly llio lino drawn in ilio 
1 nilcd Shilcti litlwccii lliiiM<i will! liMVc accciilcd it nud tllOHO wild liavc 
comljalcd il, nr Id il. nt^vcrcly uIomk, a|)|i(NirH to lutlinalo a fji'tmoral 
HOUHO of iconic tiiicli ndalion holwocn tlio doch'iiioM. Wo Had no trac(* 
of It among liio wrllorn luutwn aH ]>rot('clloninlH. I'rofoHHor Howcn 
dlHtlnctly i'(»j('clH iL Mohhth. Uanlol IJayniond and PoHliino SinilJi ondt, 
all alhiHlon to it, ro far an wo luivo obnorvi'd. Mr. Claroy, il, Ih tnio, 
pivo It conntcnanco in IiIh lOnnay on Wa:f>'(<H ; l)nt tlion Mr, ('art*y 
waH a fnM'-tradcrin 18!!5. On tlio otlior hand,Pi'ofoHM(n'H VoUniito, Muh- 
coni, and l*crry, wlio hvUo Hlvonj? ji-ronnd ai^tiinMt f>'ovorninonl.iil Inl-iM'- 
fpronctMvilli llir iiiclhodH and ronVHOH of indnHlry,all hlidiifj;ly pro- 
nonnco tlio wa/;c fund tlioory. 

" Dr, \>'ayland, whoHo trcatlHi* on iN.liiical Economy, thoiigli pnlilitili 
cd in 1H!17, would apprav (hco ricrncc) lo liavo h^Hn^ jiialuly coniposiMl 
))ii()r lo llic < iiiri,"( ii((Mii ditiliiiil r (if llio wago-fnnd (licory, fol- 
lowed MaltliiiiH in liiH HlaUuni'nl. of Ilio law nf wagc^H. (VVayland'H I'ol. 
Kcon.,]). !U3.) Excopiin^^' Dr, Wayland. Mr. Aniana WalluM' In l,lio 
only American wiihn- on nyHlematie i>olilical e<'ononiy, of |,lio frtMt- 

trad<i h'chool, whom wo reinoinlxM" HH ^'IviiiK' n iinlenando to tin* 

WMf>-e-fiind llieory. It can Hcarcely nood to Im Ha,ld that wo rogard tho 
idea (if an eHuentia! connt^ctlon between tho two doctrinoH aN wholly 
niihiakeii. Frou-trado i-oho without tlilw theory of wagon, and will unro- 
ly not fall with it."— North American l{eview, cxx., pjt. DM, 91, note. 



142 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

applying for employment involved, as it donbtless did, a 
reduction in the rate of wages, was due to the circumstance 
that English agriculture, in the then existing state of chemi- 
cal and mechanical knowledge, had reached the condition 
of " diminishing returns." But at the same time in the 
United States, the accession of vast bodies of laborers was 
accompanied with a steadily-increasing remuneration of 
labor, and States and counties were to be seen bidding 
eagerly against each other for these industrial recniits. 

That English writers should have been misled, by what 
they saw going on around them, into converting a generali- 
zation of insular experiences into a universal law of wages, 
is not greatly to be wondered at ; but that American writ- 
ers should have adopted this doctrine, in simple contempt 
of what they saw going on around them, is indeed sur- 
prising.' 

I would not impeach the scientific impartiality of those 
who first put forward in distinct form this theory of wages ; 
but it may fairly be assumed that its progress toAvards 
general acceptance was not a little favored by the fact that 
it afforded a complete justification for the existing order of 
things respecting wages. If there was, in truth, a definite 
fimd out of which wages were paid ; if competition un- 
erringly distributed the whole of that s-mi ; and if no 
more could be paid to the wages class, as a whole, without 
impairing capital, diminishing employment, and thus in 
the end injuring the laborers themselves, then surely it 
was an easy task to answer the complaints or remon- 



' We have had a right to do better than this in political economy, in 
the United States. " The Americans are Englishmen whose intelli- 
gence is not intimidated and whose conduct is not controlled by many 
of the influences derived from tradition and authority, which govern 
the beliefs and actions of the mother country. From the course taken 
'by the United States, ve may often rorreetly interpret the bent lehich out 
nation will follow as they gradually escape, for good or evil, from the 
domination of the past." — Address of Lord Napier and Ettrick as 
President of the British Social Science Assoc' "^ion, 1872. (Transac- 
tions, p. 17.) 



THE WAQE-FUNB THEORY. 143 

strances of tlie working classes, and to demonstrate the 
futility of trades-unions and strikes as means of increasing 
wages. If an individual workman complained for himself, 
he could be answered that it was wholly a matter between 
himself and his own class. If he received more, another 
must, on that account, receive less, or none at all.' If a 
workman complained on account of his class, he could be 
told, in the language of Prof. Perry, that " there is no use 
in arguing against any one of the four fundamental rules 
of arithmetic. The question of wages is a question of 
division. It is complained that the quotient is too small. 
Well, then, how many ways are there to make a quotient 
larger ? Two ways. Enlarge your dividend, the divisor 
remaining the same, and the quotient will be larger ; 
lessen your divisor, the dividend remaining the same, and 
the quotient will be larger." (Pol. Econ., p. 123.) 

A most comfortable doctrine surely,^ and one which 
made it a positive pleasure to conduct a quarterly review 
in times when the laboring classes were discontented or 
mutinous. If the workman would not give up when told 
to enlarge his dividend, he was struck dumb on being in- 
formed that his only alternative was to lessen his divisor. 
The divisor aforesaid being flesh and blood, with certain 

' " If law or opinion succeeds in fixing wages above this rate, some 
laborers are kept out of employment." — J. S. Mill, Pol. Econ., i. 432. 

^ The writer has been sharply criticised for having said in a public 
address at Amherst College, in 1874, that " by the wage-fund theory, 
whatever is in wages, is right." This has been referred to as an in- 
stance of misrepresenting an opponent's position, the more easily to 
refute him. I confess myself so dull of apprehension as now, not- 
withstanding the effect of this castigation in sharpening my wits, to be 
unable to understand wherein my proposition is objectionable, even on 
the ground of my critics. If the wage-fund comprises all that can be 
paid in wages ; if that fund is unfailingly distributed by competition ; 
if farther to increase wages would be to trench on capital, and thus di- 
minish future employment, and thus woriv permanent injury to the 
laboring classes, together with the rest of the community, why is it 
not right that the employer should pay just such wages as he does? 
Why would it not be wrong were he to pay more ? 



144 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

attaclimenta to lioine and life, and with a variety of incon- 
venient affections, Avas not to be lessened so easily. If the 
workman tnrn3d him from words to Mows, and went out 
" on strike " with a view to better his condition, it was 
regai'ded as the act of an irrational animal whose in- 
stincts, nnf oi'tnnatelj, were not politico-economical. S trikes 
could not increase the wage-fund ; strikes did not diminish 
the number of applicants for employment ; therefore, it 
was plain as a pikestaff that strikes could not raise wages. 

Now, it may seem wanton to break such a pretty toy as 
this ; but the fact is that the wage-fund theory is demon- 
strably fake, contrary alike to the reason of the case and 
to the course of history. 

1st. As has been shown in a former chapter, wages are 
really paid out of current production, and not out of capi- 
tal, as the wage-fund theory assumes. 

{a) Granting, for the moment, that wages are wholly 
advanced out of capital to supply the iimnediate necessities 
of the laborer, I have, I think, abundantly proved that 
the two questions, wdiether labor shall be employed at all, 
and, secondly, what wages shall be paid to laborers if em- 
ployed, are decided by reference to production and not 
to capital. It is the prospect of a profit in production 
which determines the employer to hire laborers ; it is the 
anticipated value of the product which determines how 
much he can pay them. The product, then, and not capi- 
tal, furnishes at once the motive to employment and the 
measure of wages. If this be so, the whole wage-fund 
theory falls, foi' it is built on the assumption that capital 
furnishes the measure of wages ; that the wage-fund is no 
lai-ger because capital is no larger,' and that the only way to 

' " It thus appears that if population increases without any increase 
of capital , wages fall ; and that if capital increases without an increase 
of population, wages rise. It is evident, also, that if both increase, 
but one faster than the other, the effect will be the same as if the one 
had not increased at all, and the other had made an increase equal to 
the difference." — James Mill, Pol. Econ., p. 43. 



EFFICIENCY AFFECTS WAGES. 145 

increase the aggregate amount which can be paid in wages 
is to increase capital. 

Q>) But as matter of fact, wages are not wholly ad- 
vanced by capital, but are paid out of the product of the 
labor for which wages are due, as has been shown in the 
preceding chapter. This alone, which is indisputable, in- 
validates the theory we are considering. 

2d. But there is more and worse to be said against the 
wage-fund. It will be noted that by every statement of 
this doctrine which we have quoted, the amount that can 
be paid in Avages is taken as fixed irrespective of the num- 
ber and quality of laborers seeking employment. If, then, 
the laborers be few, wages Avill be high ; if they be many, 
wages will be low, for the number of laborers is taken as 
the divisor of a predetermined dividend. Let us consider 
this. 

{a) This assumption disregai'ds all those elements, 
brought out to view in Chapter III., which go to make 
up the efficiency of the laborer. Thus, granted a certain 
store of provisions, of tools, and of materials for produc- 
tion, sufficient, say, for 1000 laborers, those who hold the 
wage-fund assert that the same rate of wages (meaning 
thereby the actual amounts of necessaries, comforts, and 
luxuries received by the laborer) would prevail whether 
those 1000 laborers be Englishmen or East-Indians ; or, if 
Englishmen, whether they be, as a body, drunken, ignorant, 
wasteful and indolent, or possessed of all the economical 
virtues. Ultimately, it is held, the former state of things 
would reduce capital, and hence reduce wages ; but, in the 
exact present, the rate of wages is fixed by the ratio be- 
tween the predetemiined wage-fund and the number of 
laborers applying for employment, and employers can and 
will pay the rate so fixed. 

On the contrary, is it not true that the present economi- 
cal quality of the laborers, as a whole, is an element in as- 
certaining the aggregate amount that can now be paid in 
wages ; that as wages are paid out of the product, and as 



14G THE WAGES QUESTION. 

tlie pridluct will he nTc-atiT or siuallor 1)3^ reason of the 
workinan'B sobriety, iiulustry, aiul intelligenee, or his want 
of those (piah'ties, so wages may and shonld he higher or 
lower accordingly V 

(//) l)Ut, again, since wages are paid ont of and measured 
by tiie product of industry, and since productive power 
may be increased by the invention of machinery, the dis- 
covery of arts, and the iiii])rov(Miient of processes, without 
any inunediate increase of capital, ought it not to be possi- 
ble that wages should be enhanced by such causes, popula- 
tion and capital being assumed, for purposes of argument, 
to stand still 'i Now, the wage-fund advocate concedes 
that such inventions and im])rovements will increase capital, 
and hence become the reason for an advance in a more or 
less distant future ; but only as they lirst increase capital 
can they increase the wage-fund. 

Let us discuss this. ])oint. 

AVe will take a community having a capital represented 
by 1()(>,()()0, a po})ulation repivsented by 1(H)(), and an an- 
nual j)roduct represented by 10,000, of wliit-h labor receives 
7000. JiCt it be supjioscnl that the productive power of 
this conununity is increased at once 10 per cent by im- 
pro"\enuMits in tools, implements, and machinery through 
all the departments of its industry. The new machineiy 
is brt)ught into use. The capital of the conununity has 
not been tluTcby increased ; on the contrary, all such in- 
vent ious involve a temporary dimimition of ca])ital. The 
old machiiuM'y beconu^s useless, M'hile a ]>ortion of the 
previouslyH'ii'culating capiral has \o be taken for the new. 



' Tho view liorc takcMi of tho relation of tlio laV.oror's ofiicioncv to 
liifl wages substantially coincidos with that presented by Prof. Stanley 
Jevons in his Theory of Political Economy, pp. 250-202, and by Prof. 
Ilearu, of Melboiu-ni", in his Plutology. Mr. Jevons styles his own 
views " somewhat heretical." Mr. J. L. Shadwell, writing: in the " In- 
dependent Section " of the Westminster Review (January, 1872), ad- 
vances " the elliciency of labor" as one j^reat cause for the variations of 
waives, wliolly i:ul('|)i'iuh'nt of increase of popuUilion or of capital. 



INVENTICma AFFECT WAGES. 147 

TliG capital, wlietlier we consider tlic aggregate capital or 
circulating capital only, being certainly no larger, wages 
can not at present, the wage-fund advocate declares, be in- 
creased, although the productive power of the community 
is greater, by 10 per cent, from the moment the new ma- 
chinery begins to move. The product is n(jw 11,000 ; but 
as cai)ital is now something less than 100,000, wages must 
even be something less than before. The additional 1000 
of product will tliercforegoto the share of ca])ital, although 
there is less capital than before. And it is only as the 
capitalists, in their uncontrolled discretion, decide to save 
this addition to their income, or a portion of it, for future 
reproductive investment, instead of spending it upon their 
own pleasure, that caj^ital will bo increased, and, with that 
increase, increase of wages be realized. 

JN'ow, to the contrary, I hold that the moment the aggre- 
gate product of labor and capital is increased by inventions, 
which are a clear gain of power for the benefit of all,' that 
moment a sufficient economical reason exists for an ad- 
vance of wages in some degree corresponding. In the 
case supposed, the share of the laborers in tlie 1000 gained 
might be found to be 700, or it might be but 690, or it 
might rise to YlO. 

{&) But the most signal fallacy of the wage-fund do(;trine 
remains to be noted. Waiving now all consideration of 
the economical quality of the laborers in any given com- 
munity, and of the possible gain in production through 
improvements and inventions, irrespective of any increase 
of capital, let us inquire what foundation there is for the 
assumption that an increase in the number of laborers in- 
volves a proportionate reduction in the amount of wages 
going to each. 

Let us take, first, a community which has not reached 
the condition of " diminishing returns." The number of 



' I omit purpoaely all consideration of the limited monopoly of in- 
ventiona created by law for the encouragement of ingenuity. 



148 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

liiborers Leing taken as 100, let the amount of capital 
ac'cuuuilated be represented l)y lOOrt. By the wage-fund 
tlieory a certain rate of animal wages will result from the 
I'atio between these (piantities. Now let us sup})Ose that 
twenty atklitional laborers arrive, bringing with tlieni 
capital 20(i'. The ratio between capital and i)o|)ulation 
remains the same as before, and by the wage-fund tlieory 
no increase of wages can result. Upon our principles, 
however, an increase of wages may result, because an in- 
crease of production will occur. 120 laborers with 
capital 120(», can and will produce more, per man, 
in a connnnnity which has not reached the con- 
dition of '''diminishing returns" than 100 laborers with 
capital lOO^if. A more effective co-operation will become 
])ossible, a minuter subdivision of labor will result, and 
the greater laboring force of the community will enable 
them to undertake highly-remunerative enterprises to 
which their numbers were previously inadequate. In the 
same way, it might be that in this same connnunity 150 
laborers with capital IbOa would produce more, per man, 
than the 120 laborers ; and that 200 laborers only equally 
endowed might produce in a higher degree, jijcy' capita^ 
than 150. The reader is referred to Chapter Y. for a fuller 
discussion of the industrial })Ossibilities of such a commu- 
nity. Now, through all this, it is to be noted that our 
results are directly in contradiction of the wage-fund 
theory, which asserts that wages are determined by the 
ratio between capital and population. 

Now, if there is such power in association and in the 
subdivision of employments that the product may be 
largely increased although the capital, per man, remains 
the same, the reader will scarcely question that the opera- 
tion of these causes might suffice to keep the j!>^'r ccipita 
})roduct good, though the capital,, ])er man, should fall off 
somewhat. Yet this result, again, would be in contradic- 
tion of the wage-fund theory. Indeed, it is (pnte conceiv- 
able that a considerable nundjer of laborers mio;ht be 



WAGES WOT A PROBLEM IW DIVISION: 149 

added to a community without bringing with them any 
capital at all, yet the j?(?r capita product be actually in- 
creased thereby. It is insight into this condition of pro- 
duction that gives motive to the exertions put forth by 
almost every Western and Southern State, and almost 
every Western and Southern county, to attract immigra- 
tion. Capital they want, and they would much prefer 
immigrants with capital ; but they want immigrants any- 
how. These communities are not acting foolishly. They 
are not calling in additional laborers to divide with them a 
predetermined product. They know perfectly well that 
the product will increase as the producers increase, and 
that, in their situation, the product will increase faster 
than the j)roducers ; and therefore that each producer may 
have more, and not less, by reason of the arrival of immi- 
grants. 

Laborers have come to us from every part of the world, 
and constantly has the existing body of laborers been 
benefited by the accessions. Some of these laborers have 
brought with them small amounts of capital, and have 
been all the more welcome on that account. But, however 
they have come, were it with but a bundle on a stick, 
there has been room and work enough for all. Labor has 
had its periods of distress ; but these have been due to 
the interference of government with industry, to false 
currencies, to extravagant speculation, or to other causes, 
but not to any real excess of labor. 

In contradiction, then, of the view that wages are uni- 
versally determined by the ratio between capital and pop- 
ulation, we see that in countries which have not reached 
the condition of " diminishing returns," tlie per-capita 
product may be largely increased while the amount of 
capital, per man, remains the same^ and that it may even 
be increased, though, of course, not in the same propor- 
tion, Avhile the amount of capital, per man, is actually re- 
duced by the accession- of new bodies of laborers destitute 
of accumulations. 



\w 



rni: \v.\i;i:s Qcnsrioy. 



I'lit sii|>|iiisc imw lli;il llic (•(Uulil ion of " diiiiiiiisli- 
iiii;- rcl iii'iis" is rc'tclifd ; tli;it lln' ncci'ssioiis lii |i(i|iiil:il ion 
li!i\i> coiirmiUMl iiiilil nil tin- ciiiMlilc hiiul is lakcii up. :iu(l 
llif lii'st coiii'sc (•!' sinipli" impiMv t':iiciits made. I I riirllici" 
ncccssidiis :ii't' mndf, w t> iii:i\ llicii r\|t('cl lo sec llic w.'i^'cs 
of l.'ilior l':ill, not lit'CMiisc tlicri' is:i ^fcMtcf iMiiiiluT lo (li\ ido 
jinioiii;' tlicni :i pfcdclmuint'il di\ idciid, luil Ix'cmiisc tlio 
Muniud pi'odticl is iiiil incrcMsiMl propoiM ioii:dl\ to tliciii- 
Cl'OllHii ol' Inlior. N.'iliirc fails lo n-spoud to frcsli applicu- 
tionswitli its foi'iiicr ^ciu'i-osil v. I'lidcr this coiidit ion, 
li\f men now prodnco, as iluv always niu^l |>i'odni'(>, nioro 
than foiii', Imt not on(> tonrlh as ninch nioi-c. The \\\i<i 
innst, ihtM'i'fori', snhniil to rcrcivo t>ach h'ss than the fmir 
had i-i'('t>i\t'tl, that is, liu- wav.cs of hdior nuist fall. 'l\\c\ 
tall lu'i'ans(> prodnct ion has suslaiiu'd a ciu'rk, t hron^h iho 
limitations of natural ai;('nts. 

r.nl (his pi-(tct'ss of I'cduction in wa^i-s niav, and i;'ont>- 
rallv will, pi-orrcd slowlv, lirst, lu'causc foi' a lonLi,- linio 
lh(> lahor of tlu> iu>\v conu'i-, while it will iu>l lu' ([uile as 
pro(hicti\ o MS was that of lhtM'(»niinunit v npon tlu^aviTa^-o 
previous to his aiTi\ al, will vet not fall far slioiM o\' it, 
nature oivini;' h>nn' waniini>: jiiiainsl, an undue increase of 
population, and haviuii,- i;ri\'it patiiMiee with nu'U ; !U\d, 
seeondlv, lieeaus(> the limits of production ar»> heiuu- eon- 
slant l_v puslu>il haekwar*! 1>\ the dist-oveiw iA' new I'e- 
sonrees, hv increased tn'onomv ol" lahoi", hv imprin (Mni>nts 
of method, hv tlu- applii'ation »>f distimMlv lU'w arts, hv 
the inxention <A' machiiuMW, and hv the utilization o{' 
waste. r.ut thri>Ui;h all lhes»> the tendenev now is \o 
" diminishini;- retniais," .and luMict> to lower w ;iiies. 

Under these conditions, Hull, is the waii't* fuiul thooiy 
\\'\\o i \\"i> answer with eonlidence th.at /'//n f/ht^ri/ ('tin 
lir^tY)' J>t> frH(\ foi- it excluih's allo<;et hei- the eoni rihut ion 
which the new I'omer, the .additional lahon-r, n\akes to 
the pr(>duction iA the conimunit v in which he is so un- 
weleonu" an arri\al. '['he wau'c fund doclriui* I'l^^ards him 
as a pure addition to the tlivis(>r, without ri>cv>iini/.in::: tlio 



FALLACY OF THE WAGE-FUND. 151 

fact tl)<'it liis labor must also add sc^uiotliiiii^ to tlie divi- 
dend. IJc no Ioniser contributes moi'o, far more to pro- 
duction than the cost of liis own subsistence, as in an ad- 
vaiuiing state of iiidusti'y, before natural agents are fully 
occupied and employed. He no longer contributes as 
much as he requires. J>ut he still contributes sometliing, 
and that something, however small it may be, helps to 
swell the ainonnt that can be j)aid in wages.' 



' See the remarks by Prof. Senior on the possibilities ol English 
agriculture, quoted on p. 97. 



PART II. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION : COMPETITION : THE DIFFU- 
SION THEORY : THE ECONOMICAL HARMONIES. 

Having discussed much at length certain principles in 
the production of wealth, in that connection showing the 
falsity of the current doctrine of a wages-fund, we come 
now to the problem of distribution, wherein we may look 
to find the true philosophy of wages. 

But is there a problem of distribution ? Can there be 
a philosophy of wages? Certainly if we exclude the ques- 
tion of rent, the orthodox^ economists hav^e scarcely rec- 
ognized a problem of distribution, and were it not for the 
space taken for refuting the opinions of heretical writers, 
what the text books have to say on the subject of wages 
would be very little. How, indeed, can there be a philoso- 
phy of wages, when the doctrine of a wages-fund prevails ? 
H" the question of wages is simply a question in long-divis- 
ion, what need to take much space to illustrate the opera- 
tions of " one of the four fundamental rules of arithmetic." ^ 
PopulatioPx being given, there is no philosophy of wages. 
The whole question of the well-being of the laboring-class 
is, then, reduced to a question of population. Here phil- 
osophy becomes possible ; but the question of population 
does not belong in the department of distribution at all. 

* " L'economie politique que j'appellerais volontiers ortliodose. . . 
semblait etre definitivement constituee, Comme I'eglise de Rome, elle 
avait son Credo." — E. de Laveleye, Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15, 
1875. « See p. 143. 



188 77/^.' UM( //•;>• (.H'Ksno.y. 

I'ut »niMi tho \v;ii;('-t'iiml ili>i'trim> ;isuli\ iho t\'om>iiiiv^t5* 
«>t'tlu' M;>nv>l>ost(>i' Solu>ol liavo \\o\ hccw (ii8|H>stnl to r(\i>"!U\i 
\\\o luoMiMU o( d\Mv\hu\\o\\, l\w qiu'f^tlou of rout (>\('t>|»tiMl, 
as (Mu> v>l' Muirh ur:;oiU'v (M* ilillu-ully. Thov liavo Iuhmj ol" 
till* opinion o\|>n>-<si>d bv Chovalior, thirty-tivo yoars .'»i;o, 
tli;it this ilr|>;utu\ont »>t" politiv-al iH-onoiny is intiM'ior in 
intiM'ost !unl iniport.-uuv to that o( |M'oiiiu*lion.' This has 
not hotM> i'voux a Uis|>t>si(ii>n to liisir^aril th»> I'tVn'ts on 
hun\an happiiioss, and thi' stron^-th and stalulily o( tho 
j^tato, w i\>ni<'ht hy a ijood or an ill distriluition »>l" tho |»ro- 
ilni'ts ot" inilnstry ; hut fnnn a lu^liof in tho ahsohitt* sulli- 
ciiMu-y ot" orononiioal torros, in a slate ot' industrial tVoo- 
ilonu to ililluso all hunlons and all honollts aliko, to tho 
hii;hi*st advantaii'o of tlu* industrial conmiunity. biisso/ 
fairo: lot thoso prinoiplos work iinhindorod, hashomv ooino 
to (,'onlain protty nuuh ihi' whoh^ tluHM'y v>f distribution as 
i»old hy tho writors »>f this s<'1uh»1. To suoh it oan only ho 
a tnatttM' v( ourious intorost, t^o'' far as llu'y aro oonoiM-novl 
as politioal ooononiists. what aro tho !;uis o( tho distribu- 
tion o[' woaUh at any uivon timo, i>r what tho nu>ral and 
i*ooial ooudition o\' any sinulo olass o( tho oonnnunity. If 
tliitiji'S aro wrouii'. tlun- nood only to bo lot io work thoni- 
t^olvos riii'ht, \nulor iho inj|>ulsii>n oi' puroly ooononiioal 
foivos ; and sui'h t\>roos aro i't»nstantly oporatini; ft>v tho 
ivdivss of ii'riovanoos, and tho ropair o[' inoqualitios. If 
attiiht is wronj;- at prosont, it is simply bov'anso tho tVoo 
play *.A' tcvMuunio foivos has boon hindorod by arbitrary 
onaotn\ont, or illoual violonoo in tin* past: tho ono thiny; 
n\piiri>d to brim;- about industrial n^liof is iuvtustrial fivo- 
douu fc^o completely satisJtied aiv the writers;! of this school 

' " lVrtO!», to psMlajjv »los pr\Hl»its itu tnnail ost ili^jjno do toivto h\ 
BollloUvuto vlo vjulivjujvio ft do rintolUjrxMioo ot du owur. (.Vpoiutant, 

««M»^irAi*v>Mn^»' HUP collo do l'ftcortiiso»»t>nt h«rnuM\iquo ot ri\«:utior do 
Irt prtHhu'tiou."— IVilsi^mo disa>virs d'Ouvortuiv du ivurs do I'svumV, 
1841^^. 



77///; i'i;()i',hii!M OH' niH'i'ii.inirrioN'. \ni 

will) llic, siiniciciKt)' (»r IIk; force IlK'.y iii\'oI<(i lo KcciiiH! ;i 
ri^lil, <lisl riliiil ion, l,li;i-l, lln^y r(;riiH(! lo iriiiki! |»olil ic;t,l IVcm!- 
<loiii ;i, coiidil ion,' nccrsHiiry or (!V(in iiiipoi'l.'Uil, for IIkj 
HUC(u;s,sl"iil ojxji'.ilion of llial, \\)Vi-v,. 'V\\i'. (jiK^slion of \x;vj^v,b 
is no diflbi'cni in Uk; llniUxl SI,;iI<'k IVoni wliiil, it, in In 
ItiiBHiii, b_y J'Ciison of (lillcrcrKiOK in llic polilicul insl.il.nlionH 
of I,li()t5(3 coiiniricjH. Jl; diiToi'H nolliin^' in Auslriu i'roni 
wliii-t. it Ih in J'ruKKiu, by r((!iKon of 1,li(! \vi(l(! (li(l"<!)'(.'ru;o in , 
|)o|iul;n- inl,('lllij;'('n('(! (;\I,sl,inn' hdl.wciin iJiosc conntrics. 
'J'Ik! h.'illol, (;;iM do nolliinu' 1,0 cnliuncc w!i^'(;(s: Kociul oppor- 
tnnilicK v;i\\ do nolliin<;', (ixccpt ;iH tlioy ojx^i'Jito in rosU'iijnt, 
of popni.'ilion; isynipiit liy ;ind i"(;Kp(!(!f; I'oi' hiltoc c'tn do 
iHjtliin^. 'J'Ik; (;{',(;nonii(',id forco Ih ull-Huillcicnl, ^t.'uiIimI 
only !i Bbitc of induHl,)'i!il fi'cuidoni. 

(JoMi'K'i'rnoN. 
(yVjnipttI il ion ji JH, and riouipclil.ioti ;ilon(5, 1,o w!ii(di iJio i 
ocononiiKi, looks to acconiplisli tlio dislribiil ion of IJk; pro- 
ductH of indnsfry. ( !oinp(!l;ition exprcsHOH tho dcBJro fuid 
the off(M'l, of t li(! bnyoj' to l)iiy ?i8 clioaply, and of the Holl(;r to 
Holl HH dc'irly ; of tlio one to <^'ivo as little, and of the other 
to '^i'.i ,'is nnu'li, ;is Ik; ciin ; luni in;i;sinncli mk ovcry iii;ui iw 
!i.t on('(! -'' I)nyer and Kolhir, w(! nay he ^iveH an little and <;(!tH 
;iH inncli ;iH tin; (ixistini^ c;on(litioriH of induBtry all(»w. 
(lonipfililion iinolvoH, theivifoi'o, we s(!(!, a fi'(!(!, (lasy ;ind 

' Let, mil iml, Hi'cin, \>y oinlHHiori, to do iiijuHtlco. Many of tlio 
wiiliTH of IliiK Hcliool \\:\\v, rcfo;nii/,c(l, in tlio I'lillcHt maiinor, not only 
\\m: iiioriil Mild hoc'diI, IjiiI, iiIho llin ind niilria I, iid viui1ii/j;ch of oducalion 
iiii<l |)iilitic,nl frocdoin, in incrouhiii^^ tii(! prod iictivo jiowcr of tlio work- 
iiiini ; but for l.iio diMtiibntion of w<!ulUi, tlioy liold Hl,ri(;t,iy (iconouiical 
iorrcH to l)o Hiillic/icnt. 

^ No iiiiui ciiii buy Jiiiytliiii;'-, uiilnis Jit tbc hiiiiic tiuKi, b(! mdlH 
Honiotliing; fdHnlic doi-H not buy llic UiinK h<! (,'cIh ; it in /oven l.o biin. 
Wli(!n a man buyH a pounil of hkjiL Im hcIIh ii, Hliillin/;;, luort! or Ichh. 
'J'Ih! butclicr may nay, 1 will H<-nd hoiiHi tlui meat iiovv.imd you niii.y 
liaiid in tlio Hliiilin^r ni thc! i;iid of tiio wciik, or of tlio nioiitli ; but tlio 
credit given dooH not ulicr tlio BubHtantiul rolutionH of tlio partiuH to 
tlic; traiiHuclion. 



188 Till-: WAGKS QirKSTTOm 

sun* ros(»i-l to llu* ht'sl luni'ket, wh:iU'\rr ho the (liin^- that 
is to he lHiiii;iil oi' siiltl. 

ll" iMMiipiM it ion hv prrtiH't, no (iiicstioii can hi' inailo of 
its ivsiih ill an t'(|iiahh' divhsiiui ot" all huinlons and ilillu- 
sion of all hrnclils 1 hi'oii<;'liout the industrial soi'ii>t_v. 
Let us considi'i" the lahoi\M-s and the iMiiplovors of lahor in 
H stat(M)f active coui[>etiti(»n. I'^ach lahorer will sell his 
lahor at tlu^ hii;;hest [)rice which any cni[)Iover can atK)rcl 
to n'ive, since the iMiipIoyers avc in conipi'lil ion ainono; 
theniselvivs lor lahor. JOai-h tMuployer will n'et his lahor at 
the lowi'st prices at which any lahorer' can ail'ord to soil 
it, siui-e the lahoroi's ww in i-onipetition anion^- tluMUselves 
for eniploynuMit. 'I'lii' lowest prici' at which -any lahorer 
will si'U his lahor is thus the hi<;'hest prici> which any 
enij>loyer can allord to |>ay. it we suppose the rate of 
■wa^vs to any single lahoi'er {o he reduceil, he it ever so lit- 
tle, helow the highest prii'e which any eni[>loyer can aiTord 
to pay, the eoniiietition amoiiij; eniployiM-s i\)r the extra 
]>rolit ihusollei'ed will sjieedily reduct> that niai'^'in io the 
ininiuuini. If ai>;aiM we suppose the wai;'es ohtainoii by ji 
siMi;le lahorer to he ahi)vo the averan'e of his class, tlic 
rosoi't of his fellows to that hettiM- market '■•' will instantly 
nti'ord his iuilividual eniployei- all tlu' lahor he reijuires 
at the usual rate. So much for the reduction or elevation 
of the wai2;es of a siu^'lo lahorer helow ov ahove the stantl- 
ard ; hut it wi> suj^poso that standard to l>e lowi'reil, and 
the wat;-es of the whole body of laborers io be reduced, wo 
shall then tiiid a like satisfactory result wrouy-ht out \\\ 
uni^ o{ twi> ways; either the employers, iicllini;- their 
labor for less, will sell their products at eorres[)ondini;-ly 
reduced prices, and the laborers will thn^, as consuni- 

' Wo luM'o assume tho industrial quality of nil laborers to bo the 
ttatut\ i\\\A all I'luployors to stand on tho saiuo footing as regards busi- 
ness capaeily anil credit. 

» •< Kvery seene of eoniiHtitlon ia callod a market." — F. W. New- 
luau, Lectures on l\)l. tiCou., p. 5. 



COMPEriTION. 1S9 

ers/ iiiiikc ^ij^'ood their noiniiial loss ms prodticorB, oi*, il" ])riee8 
be miiintiiitiud, the onlianced ])i'()lit thus nirordcd on each 
pcMiiuI, bushel or yard of the product will incite each 
iiuJividual cniployer to produce all he can, aiul for this 
purpose to employ all the labor he can ; and eni[)l()yers 
will thus be brouo-ht to bid n<>:ainst each other until the 
margin of extra profit wholly disappears, and the lowest 
price at which any laborer will sell his labor will thus 
again become the highest which any emitloyer can afford 
to pay. On the other hand, if we suppose the standard of 
wages to be raised and the body of laborers to receive a 
lai'ger com])ensati()n, then it will follow from the acition 
of competition, that either ])ricca will be raised corre- 
spondingly ami the laborers lose as consumers what they 
have nomiruilly gained as ])roduf;(!rs, oi*, prices reiiuiining 
the same, the employers will fiiui their profits trenched 
upon, and this, diminishing the motive to production, will 
diminish the employment offered, which Mdll iiuluce com- 
petition anu)ug the workmen for omploynicnt, which will 
restore the standard of wages. 

The above account will hold good of laborers and em- 
ployers bunid in the same locality and engaged in 
tiie same occupation. But if we assume laborers and 
employers to be disj^ei-sed among different localities and 
occupations, precisely the same result would, in a con- 
dition of absolute competition, be effected without loss 
and without delay. Laborers would seek employers or 
em[)loyers laborers, with perfect facility, across the divid- 
ing lines, whether territorial or industi'ial. All iiuupial- 
ities of condition would thus be immediately reduced. 
The effort of (jach to get the most possible fo]' himself 



' " For this class (the proh'taires) as for all, tlio operation of com- 
potitioii is two-fold. 'I'lu^y feel it both as buyers, and as sellers of 
services." — Bastiat, ''Harmonies of Pol. Econ.," p. 380. Doul)tless* 
but do they feel it equally, in their two capacities ? For what Prof. 
Cairnes calls " the excessive friction" of retail trade, see p. IJiy-G, 



160 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

would simpl}^ result, with equal strength and opportuni- 
ties, in giving the same to all. 

By the operation of the same principle, any burden — 
say, a tax — imposed arbitrarily upon any class, whether 
of persons, of industrial processes, or of products, is distri- 
buted equally over the M'hole community. That burden, 
wherever first imposed, becomes an clement iji determin- 
ing the actual net advantage enjoyed in their place by 
the class of persons, upon whom, or upon Avhose processes, 
or upon whose products, the burden is laid. The dimi- 
nution thus effected in theiV substantial remuneration, 
will either cause their products to rise in price, while the 
same quantity is produced by the same number of laborers 
(which may be the case if the products are of prime 
importance or necessity) ; or laborers and employers will 
leave these avocations until the prices of their products, 
thus diminished in quantity, are raised by scarcity to a 
point which will afford wages to laborers and profits to em- 
ployers equivalent, after full account be had of the excep- 
tional burden, to those enjoyed in other departments of 
production. This is the reasoning of those who hold the 
diffusion theory of taxation. 

Such is the operation of unhindered competition, 
achieving a beneficent distribution of the products of 
industry, equalizing all burdens and all benefits through- 
out the industrial community. These are the Economical 
Harmonies celebrated by Bastiat. Of course no one ever 
supposed that competition was perfect in any place, or in 
any department of human activity; but the political 
economists of the Manchester School have felt themselves 
at liberty to treat the questions of distribution precisely 
as if competition were perfect, regarding the failures as so 
far exceptional as not to impair the sul)stantial validity 
of practical conclusions based on the assumption of uni- 
vei-sal competition. Our further course will lead us to 
investigate this assumption oi a competition so general 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL. 161 

that the exceptions thereto may for practical purposes be 
disregarded ; and if we find the exceptions numerous and 
important, to inquire liow far the conchisions based on 
competition alone require modification to meet the condi- 
tions disclosed. — But first, of a term just used. What is 
The Manchester School of Political Economy ? 

It is usually spoken of as the school of Free Traders; ^ 
but this, in ray estimation, does not present the real char- 
acteristic of the class of writers included by the term. 
There were Free-traders before Manchester ; there are 
Free-traders who are not of Manchester. 

I should rather define .the Manchester school to consist 
of those free traders who carry into the department of 
Distribution, that assumption of the economical sufiiciency 
of competition which the whole body of free-traders accept 
when dealing with the questions of Exchange ; who fail to 
recognize any differences between services and commodities, 
between men and merchandise, which require them to modi- 
fy their doctrine of laissez faire, looking on a Manchester 
spinner as possessing the same mobility economically, as 
being under the same complete subjection to the impulses of 
pecuniary interest, as a bale of Manchester cottons on the 
wharf, free to go to India or Iceland as the difference of a 
penny in the price offered may determine ; free-traders, 
who, to come down to single practical questions, object to 
laws against truck ^ as an interference with the freedom 
of contract ; who oppose exceptional legislation respecting ^ 
the employment of women under ground in mines and at 

' Le point de depart des Katheder-socialisten est entierement diiferent 
de celui des economistes ortliodoxes, qu'ils designent sous le nom de 
Mancliester-tlium, on secte de MancJiester, parce que c'est en eflFet, 
I'ecole des lihres echangistes qui a expose avec plus de logique les dog- 
mes du Credo ancien." — Laveleye. — Revue des Deux Mondes, .15 
July, 1875. 

' See this term defined and truck practices described, pp. 324-42, 

' Fawcett, Speeclies, p. 130. 



103 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

factory hibor during pregnancy and for the period im- 
mediately succeeding confinement, on the ground tliatsuch 
matters should bo regulated by the interest of the parties 
thereto ; who, while perhaps approving, on social consid- 
erations, laws regulating the employment of children in 
mines and factories,^ yet deny that such regulations 
have any economical justification, holding that self-interest 
is here, again, a sufHcient guide; who object to laws or 
compulsory rules respecting api)renticeshij>, or admission 
to the professions, to the gov(M'nmental regulation or in- 
spection of industrial operations, and tt) any and all acts of 
the state directed to the promotion of ]>rudence anil fru- 
gality on the part of the working classes. It was to the 
effects of such teaching that Prof. Oairnes referred when he 
said : " Laissez faire, freedom of contract, and phrases of 
like import, have of late become somewhat of bugbears, 
with a large number of people. Tt is enough to mention 
them to discredit by anticipation the most useful practical 
scheme." '^ 

But it may be here asked, are not the ]\ranchester econ- 
omists merely more consistent and thorough than those who 
stop short in their advocacy of freedom from legal restraints 
wlicn they leave the department of exchange ; does it not 
amount to this, that the Manchesterians stick to their 
principles, while others do not? It is to be in a pi)sition to 
meet this question that I have stated the theory of com- 
petition so much at length ; and I now answer, no ques- 
tion of principle is involved, but only a question of fact. Nj 
one will deny that if conJi)ctition be perfect, a right distri- 
bution will be effected by its agency, but on the other hand 
no one can claim that any such assurance exists if com- 
petition be seriously impaired. If laborers anil employers 

» The Factory Act of 1844 was passed against the opposition of 
the majority of English economists in Parliament and out. 
' Essays in Pol. Econ. p. 351. 



LA1S8EZ FAIRE A PRACTICAL RULE. 1G3 

do not in fact,^ whatever the cause, resort to the best market, 
then injuries may be inflicted on labor or on capital, and 
no economical principle whatever will operate to secure 
redress. The entire justilication for laissez faire is found 
in an assumed sufficiency of the individual motive-force to 
reach the best market. With immobility, total or partial, 
there is no certainty, or probability, of an equalization 
of burdens and benefits, or of the propagation, without 
delay or loss, of any economical impulse whatever. 

Competition, to have the beneficent effects which have 
been ascribed to it, must be all-pervading and unremitting ; 
like the pressure of the atuiospherc of which we are happily 
unconscious because it is all the while equal within and 
without us, above and below us. Were that pressure to be 
made unequal, its effects would instantly become crushing 
and destructive. So it is with competition ; when it becomes 
unequal, when the ability of one industrial class to respond 
to the Impulses of self-interest is seriously reduced by igno- 
rance, poverty, or whatever cause, Mdiile the classes with 
which it is to divide the product of industry, are active, 
alert, mobile in a high degree, the most mischievous 
effects may be experienced. 

Free traders, therefore, who decline to carry the rule of ^ 
laissez faire into the department of distribution, are not 
dodging their principles. They deny that the condition 
which alone justifies that rule, exists in this department. 
With respect to merchandise, destitute alike of sympa- 
thies and antipathies, competition is so far perfect that 
it may be reasoned upon as if no obstruction to exchange 
existed. The one additional penny of profit will send the 
bale of goods cast or west, nortli or south, to kinsman or 
to stranger, to black man or white, with absolute indiffer- 3*^ 
ence. But with that strange bundle of " apathies, sympa- 
thies and antipathies"^ called man, bound by manifold 

' The mobility of labor forms the subject of Chap. XI. 
" Charles Lamb — Essays of Ella. 



uij rill-: )VAGi:s qikstion. 

stron>;- nttni'limonts t(^ pl.'U'oand scono, toliomo :\iu1 tVionds, 
\viMi;-litcil with clailv hiu'tliMis, nlinost ov tinito to tho limit 
o( his stroni;-th, hosot with roasonahU^ ami with supersti- 
tions I'oars, !i prompt rrsort to tho host markot must so 
ovidoiUly hi» a mattiM- of ii-ri>at unci'rtaintv, tliat no oi'oiio- 
mist can justly ho aiH-uscd »>!' ahaiuloniui:; his prinoiplos 
wlu> rofusos to trust wholly to tho individual ini[nilso for 
tho riii'ht distrih\ition of tho products o( industry. Tho 
(pu^stion o'^ a oi>mpotitii>n sutVioiont or insuthoiont to this 
ond, is a tpiostion i>f fact. And it is important to ho homo 
in mind that tho ohsti'uotions ti> oomjHMitiou wiiiolulofont a 
rii^ht distrihntion, aro m>t physical moroly, or mainly, hut 
nu>ral ; i^noranoo. snporstitii>n, timidity, procrastination, 
mental imM'tia, lovo oi i-ountry, lovo o'C homo, love of 
friends. So much t'or tho ohstructions to competition, 
on llu^ sidiM^t" tho workini; classes. Hut it is oipially impor- 
tant lo note that a t'urihi>r otVoct prejudicial to thorn may 
ho prinlucod hy tho iiriH^l (>f omployoi*s I'ounteracting' x\ 
true r(\>;-ard for tiuMr own solf-intorost. The theory of 
eompetitiiMi asstimos that thoomployiM- in soekim:; his own 
interests \M11 hocome tho conservator o'i tho interests of 
tl»o lahoror, there htMUi;: :i triu' harmony o^ interests ho- 
twoen them. 'This may ho so. as Prof. C'airnos has noted, 
with interests; as they really exist, and as they \vould bo 
seen hy an enliiihtened eye. l>nt it does not follow that 
tho omjdoyor's interest, as he may regard it, coincides witli 
the interests oi those dopendent on him for employment. 
'* This chasm ii\ the aro-umont of the laissez fairo school 
has never hoon hriilijod. The advocates of tho doctrine 
shut their eyes and leap over it." ^ 



Put hero wo have to meet tho t'urthor ipiostions : irrant- 
ing that eonipetitioii is in fact impaired to an extent 

' Ejisuvs in Tol. V'oou., p. '^415. 



IMPERFECT COMPETITION. 163 

which allows serious unci lumeutablc injury to result in tlie 
distribution of the products of industry, from the i nubility 
of persons and classes to resort to their best market, is it 
the part of the legislator or of the economist to do or to 
speak otherwise than as if competition were perfect? Ai"e 
■we not to accept competition, as it is, for wliat it can now 
do; and wait for the action of economical forces in gradu- 
ally perfecting it ? Does not the existence of competition, 
liowever much impaired, establish a steady tendency which 
must sooner or later wear out the obstructions wliioh are 
admitted to beset the resort to the best market, on the part 
oi" no inconsiderable portion of the industrial community? 
And meanwhile, to repeat, should we argue or act other- 
wise than as if competition were complete? 
To these questions I have to answer as ff)llow8 : 

1. The reader is referred to wliat has been said in Chap- 
ter TV. on the degradation of labor : the bi'eakiu<i: down of 
the laboring population thi'ough industrial disti-ess and dis- 
aster. It was tliere sought to bo shown, that if the blow, 
in its suddenness oi' its severity, bears more than a certain 
ratio to the power of resistance, the cliances ^re many, 
human nature being what it is, that the wages class will 
succumb, that is, that they will accept the harder ternjs 
imposed upon them ; and, on the one hand, through a less 
ample or nourishing diet and meaner conditions, and on 
the other, through a loss of self-respect and jjcrliaps tin; 
contracting of distinctly bad haljits, they will becoire 
uiuible to render the same amount and quality of sei-vice 
as before. This result being reached, not ordy is there 
not a tendency in any economical forces to repair the 
mischief, but even the occurrence of better times and new 
opportunities, if brought about fi-om the outside (as fcjr 
example, by the discovery of new resources in nature, or 
new powers in art), would not serve to restore the shattered 
industrial manhood. 

2. Such disasters aside, the tendency of purely econom- 



101) THt: WAGES QUESTION. 

ical foi'ces is continually to aggravate the disad vantages 
from which any person or class may suffer. The fact of 
being worsted in one conflicit is an ill preparative for 
another encounter. Every gain which one party makes 
at the expense of another, furnishes the sinews of war for 
furthci' aggressions; ever}' loss which one person or class 
of ]>ei'sons sustains in the competitions of industry, weak- 
ens the cai)al>ility for future resistance. This ])rinci])le 
applies with iiici'casing fort-e as men sink in the industrial 
scale. Emphatically is it true that the curse of the poor 
is their ]H)verty. (Mu>ated in (luantity, (Quality and price* 
in whatever they purcliasi\ tlu\y are notoriously uiuiblo 

' to get as much, propoi'tu>nally, for their little, as the rich 

for their larger means. Economically speaking, tliis 

V must ever i-emain true, aiul operate witli increasing power. 
Moral forces may indeed enter to restore the equilibrium ; 
the liberality of nature may afford to the weaker class a 
margin sutHcient for them to long maintain themselves; 
the discovery of new arts and new resources may open np 
fresh opportunities for retrieving loss; but, through all, it 
cannot be controverted that the tendency of purely eco- 
nomical fori-es is to widen the ditferences existing in the 
constitution of industrial society, and to subject any and 
every person aiul class of persons who may, from any 
cause, be at disadvantage in respect to selling his or their 
service or product, to a constantly increasing burden. 

3. Progress toward freedom is not necessarily accom- 
plished by indiscriminately throwing off' restraints, 
either in the political or the industrial "• body. True, men 

* Count Rumford'a Essaya contain much intcrestinfj mivttor in 
illustration of tho losses which tho working classes suftbr in tho do- 
mestic use of what they have purchased, from the want of simple and 
elementary a])i)aratus for cookini::, storing, etc. 

■^ Thus. I cannot hesitate to assent to the opinion of M. Say, that 
the l)reaking down of all the fraternities in Paris, after the Revolution 
of IS;U>, anil the sudden ru.sh, without order or discretion, of a mob of 



THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION. 107 

only learn to swim by goiiii^ into the water; only make 
their eyes of use by going into the light ; but, out of 
regard to human weakness, exposure to either element 
should be conducted with measure, and in order. While 
progress toward freedom is to be made by the removal of 
industrial restrictions, it doea not follow that the removal 
of any specific restriction at any given time, conduces to 
such progress. The restriction may bo, in the situation 
existing, correspondent to an inlirmity whicli (junnot so 
summarily be done away. A crutch operates by restraint 
only ; but it is a rosti-aint which prevents a lame man from 
falling to the ground, whence he might have no strength 
to raise himself again; wliile, if artilicially sustained, he 
tnay be able to achieve a very considerable freedom of 
movement and of action. A law prohibiting a child under 
eight years to work in a factory, operates by restraint only ; 
but it is a restraint upon parental folly or greed, which may 
prevent a horrible waste of ])liysical force, and cause a 
larger amount of actual labor to l)e accomplished during 
the entire term of life, than would be effected were the 
child to be stunted by ])rematiire exposure and hardship. 
For this reason I boli(!V(!, with Mr. Horner, that "the 
interposition of the legislature in behalf of children, is 
justified by the most cold and severe [)rincij)lesof political 
c!coiiomy," i 

labor into trades imuiemorially rustricted, was the cause of great 
disaatcr in 1831; that it would have Ixjen better, both for the tradeH 
and for the mass of outHide labor, had the barriers been removed more 
gradually. 

' " Employment of children in factories," p. 15. Mr. Horner, who 
was government insijector of factories, states that in the lace mills of 
Nottingham, children, 9 to 15 years of age, were frequently employed 
20 hours on a stretch, from 4 A.M. to 12 at night, [p. 14.] He quotes a 
witness who testified that " being frequently detained in his counting- 
houHc late at night, till 12 or 1 o'clock, he has often, in going liome, in 
tlie depth of winter, met mothers taking their children to the neigh- 
boring print- works, the children crying." [p. 133.] 

Dr. Villcnne, in his memorable report to the French Academy, 



/ 



168 THE WAGES QUESTION. 



Jnst liow much force, on pui-ely economical principles, 
has the objection uri;-ed against many proposed measures, 
that they are in violation of the freedom of contract? Let 
us candidly but searchingly consider this question. What 
is the authority of laissez taire^ when levelled against a 
factory act, or a proposition to restrain truck ? Laws 
in restraint of trade, or interfering with the times and 
methods of employment, with wages and prices, are not 
mischievous because they violate a theoretical self-suffi- 
ciency of labor, but because they effect a certain actual 
result. What is that result ? They diminish mobility, 
which, as we liave seen, is the prime condition of compe- 
tition, while competition affords the only security the 
laborer can have that he will get the utmost possible for his 
service. The mischief of such laws is simply and solely 
that they are obstructive. Here, then, and not in the 
shibboleth, laissez foAre, laissez passer, Ave have the true 
test of the expediency of a proposed regulation of indus- 
try or trade. Does it practically obsti'uct movement ? 

used the following language in writing of the factory laborers of 
Alsace : " The rents in the manufacturing towns and villages imme- 
diately adjoining, are so high that they are often obliged to live at the 
distance of a league and even a league and a half. The poor children, 
many of whom are scarcely seven years old, and some even yo'unger, 
have to take from their sleep and their meal-hours, whatever is required 
to traverse that long and weary road, in the morning to get to the 

factory, in the evening to get home To judge how excessive is 

the labor of children in the factories, one has only to recollect that it 
is unlawful to employ galley-slaves more than 13 hours a day, and these 
12 must be broken by two hours for meals, reducing the actual labor 
to ten hours a day ; while the young people of whom I speak have to 
toil 13 hours, and sometimes 133^^, independent of their meal times." 

* "So understood, I hold it to be a pretentious sophism, destitute of 
foundation in nature and fact, and rapidly becoming an obstruction 
and nuisance in public affairs." — J. E. Cairnes' Essays in Pol. Econ., 
p. 253. 



LAISSEZ FAIRE. 169 

But is it said : every restriction or regulation is in some 
degree, obstructive? Right and wrong, at once. Restric- 
tion and regidation are obstructive as against a pi^e-existing 
condition of perfect practical freedom. B iit perfect free- 
dom obtains in nothing human. There are obstructions 
on every hand, not physical only, but also intellectual and 
moral. May not a regulative act well conceived to remove 
certain moral and intellectual obstacles to free action, have 
the effect to promote, not retard, industrial movement ? 

For instance : take the transfer of real estate. An act 
for the registration of ownership is restrictive upon 
transfers; yet can any one doubt that judicious provis- 
ions for registration, instead of retarding transfers of land 
and buildings, do in fact, in the most important degree, 
promote them ? The compliance with the requirement of 
registration is indeed, in itself, an obstruction : it involves 
a certain expenditure of labor and money ; a few shillings 
and an hour's time. But it gives every possible buyer 
such an assurance as to his title and the history of the 
property, as constitutes an intellectual and moral help in 
the acquisition of estates, of the greatest effectiveness.^ 
For it should be borne in mind, in all discussions relating 
to the exchange and distribution of wealth, that fear, 
ignorance, superstition and custom are as truly obstruc- 
tive as are rivers and mountains; and if a registrative pro- 
vision gives certainty and clearness, where before was 
doubt and apprehension, or utter ignorance, it may pay 
a thousand times over, for the nominal hindrance to 
action which is involved in a formal compliance with its 
requirements. 

It is difficult to see how perfect freedom becomes the 
condition of economical, any more than it is of political, 
security and advancement. Why should not the throw- 
ing-off of economical restrictions among a people long 

* In England, the absence of a system of registering titles has bur- 
dened the transfer of estates most oppressively. 



170 TEE WAGES QUESTION. 

abused and deeply abased, be accomplished with the same 
catition, and the same regard for the order of things, as 
the social and political emancipation and enfranchisement 
of oppressed masses ? Yet we find wi-iters who would 
ridicule the notion that one form of government is equally 
ajood for all peoples, or that any form of government could 
be good for an}"- people, which had not respect to national 
peculiarities of character and structure ; who hold that no 
people long degraded can safely be raised at once to politi- 
cal freedom ; and even insist that among a people long 
habituated to universal suffrage, and with traditions of 
self-rule extending through centuries, stringent limitations 
should be imposed on the popular will : we find, I say, 
these writers declaring for the removal of all restrictions 
throughout industrial society, even such as are of a regu- 
lative character merely, not only without regard to the 
habits or condition of the people, but equally M'ithout 
reijard to the order in which such restrictions should be 
removed. 

For myself, I am utterly at a loss to conceive how such 
reasoners, some of whom are conservatives and pessimists 
of the deepest dye in politics, justify their optimistic radi- 
calism in industry. Certainly, if, as (3hevalier, the great 
apostle of free trade in France, has said, Political Econ- 
omy and politics rest on the same principles, ^ there would 
seem to be as much virtue in judicious and disinterested 
restraint in labor, as in government or society. Nowhere 
has restraint any positive virtue; no life or healing comes 
out of it ; but grave evils may be suppressed ; great waste 
and mischief prevented by it. 

But while I hold that discretion and order should be 
observed in throwing off social, political and economical 
restrictions, alike, I hold this in no desponding ordistrust- 

^"L'economie politiqu'e s'appuie sur les memes principes que la 
politique." — 8th Discours d'ouverture de I'annee, 1847-8. 



THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION. 171 

ful vein. I believe that society and industry may unload 
rapid!}', if in due order; that there is something in the 
very name of liberty to which the heart of man, in what- 
ever condition, responds ; and that men who believe in 
freedom are the safest guides in directing the progress of 
a people toward perfect freedom. I do not say that 
progress should be made slowly ; but that it should be 
made by steps, by due gradation — and with something 
of preparation for each successive stage of the advance. 



AVhat then is the problem of Distribution ? 

We have seen that so far as diiferences exist in respect to 
the ability and opportunities of the several classes of Indus- 
trial society to resort swiftly and surely to the best market, 
such difference must put at an economical disadvantage the 
class suffering the greatest relative obstruction, and con- 
fer corresponding advantages at their expense, upon the 
class or classes more favorably situated and better en- 
dowed. We have seen, moreover, that such disadvantages, 
be they great or small, at the outset, are cumulative ; that 
the word " to him that hath shall be given, and from him 1/ 
that hath not shall be taken away even the little that he 
seemeth to have," is a law of universal operation and a 
very unharmonizing tendency; that economical forces, 
thus, instead of bringing redress, tend to crowd further 
down the classes who enter the struggle weakest. 

If, then, the political economist finds the obstructions be- 
setting the resort to the best market, existing in the present 
condition of industrial society, to be, in fact, serious, is he 
not bound to abandon a rule of conduct based on the 
assumption of a competition so general that it may for prac- 
tical purposes be deemed universal, and to study critically 
the condition of the several classes of persons making claims 
on the product of industry with a view to ascertain what help 



n«3 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

can 1)0 lirouulit from tlu'outsidc% in the absence of any repar- 
ative virtue in imlustrialeauses, to supi)ly the deticieneies of 
competition 'i Failinsj: to iiml relief in economical forces, he 
will look away to moral fi)rces to achieve the emancipation 
of the economically ojipressed classes, not by takini;- them 
out from under the operation of economical laws, for that 
is impossible, but by providin<j^ the conditions (intelliijence, 
frugality and sobriety, political franchises and social ambi- 
tions) which will secure tiiat mobility, that easy, quick and 
sure resort to market, which alone is needed to g-ivo scope 
and sway to the beneficent ai>*encies of competition. 
Fortunatelv he may look with confidence to see this 
amelioration coincide with a continued increase in the 
])roductive power of labor, due to fresh advances in the 
arts and sciences, whii-h will facilitate the upwanl move- 
ment. 

Meanwhile the question whether any specilic legislation 
in protection of the working classes (say, a factory act), or 
anv measure of regulation and restraint adopted by an in- 
dustrial class for their own benefit (say, a trades union 
ride), is likely to })romote the desired object, should be 
treated, I suggest, cm the following principle. Remem- 
bering that the one thing to be secured lor the right dis- 
tribution of wealth, is perfect competition, it should bo 
inquired, whether that act or measure will, all things con- 
sidered, on the whole and in the long run, increase or dimin- 
ish the substantial, not the nominal, freedom of movement. 
If the effect would be to quicken the resort to market, then, 
no matter how far restrictive in form, it must be approved. 
But in considering the probable tendencies of such acts or 
measures, we should bear in mind how great are the 
liabilities to error and corruption in legislation ; how cer- 
tain is the administration of the law to fall short of its 
intent; how much better most results are reached through 
social than through legal press\ire ; how destitute of all 
positive virtue, all healing efficacy, is restraint, its only 



THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION: 173 

office being to prevent waste ; how frequently, too, good 
acts become bad precedents. ^ 

Yet these considerations, strong as they are, do not 
suffice to create (h)ubt in vay mind of the justification, on 
purely economical grounds, of laws for the registration of 
real estate, for the limitation or prohibition of truck, or 
for the regulation of the labor of children, of women, or 
even of men, in accordance with the dictates of the most 
advanced sanitary science. In Chapter XYIII, questions 
will arise respecting the practical influence of legislation 
upon the substantial freedom of industrial movement. 
These will be discussed with single reference to the prin- 
ciple of judgment here set up. And when tlie question 
of trades unions and strikes comes before us, it will be 
treated on the same grounds. I shall not deem the 
question to be decided against these agencies by the fact 
that they take the form of inhibition and restriction ; 
but shall hold myself bound to inquire whether they do, in 
their time and place, increase or diminish the freedom 
and the fulness of the laborer's resort to market, bearing 
in mind that his practical ability to accomplish that resort, 
is made up of a material element, the means of transporta- 
tion and of provisional )naintenance, and of intellectual 
and moral elements, quite as essential. 

' "It is one thing to repudiate the scientific authority of laissez 
faire, freedom of contract, and so forth : it is a totally different thing 
to set up the opposite principle of state control, the doctrine of pa- 
ternal government. For my part, I accept neither one doctrine nor the 
other, and, as a practical rule, I hold laissez faire to be incomparably 
the safer guide. Only let us remember that it is a practical rule, and 
not a doctrine of science ; a rule in the main sound, but, like most other 
sound practical rules, liable to numerous exceptions ; above all, a rule 
which must never for a moment be allowed to stand in the way of the 
candid consideration of any promising proposal of social or industrial 
reform." — J. E. Cairnes' Essays in Pol. Econ., p. 251. 



(nTAPTKR XI 



THE MOBILITY OK I.AVa^K. 



Wk liave seen that, with pertot't competition, the work- 
ing classes have ample security that tliev will, at all 
times, receive the greatest amount of wages which is 
consistent with the existing conditions of industry. The 
object of the present chapter is to ascertain, if we may, 
how far the actual mobilit}' of labor corresponds to tiiat 
theoretical mobility which is involved in perfect compe- 
tition. 

And first, we note that the theoretical mobility of la- 
bor rests on the assumption that laborers will, in all things 
and at all times, pursue their economic interests; that they 
perfectly comprehend those interests, and will sufller 
nothing to stand in the Nvay of their attainment. Of 
course the men of whom this can be predicated are not 
real human men. They are a class of beings devised for 
the purposes of economical reasoning in accordance with 
the definition given by Mr. ^lill in his ''Essays on some 
Unsettled Questions in Political Economy," as follows: 
"Political Economy is concerned with man solely as a 
being who desires to possess wealth, and who is capable of 
judging of the comparative efficacy of means to that 
end. . . It makes entire abstraction of every other 
human passion or motive, except those Mhich may be 
regarded as perpetually antagonizing principles to the 
desire of wealth, namely, aversion to labor and desire of the 
present enjoyment of costly indulgences. These it takes, 
to a certjvin extent, into its calculations, because these do 



THE MOBILITY OF LA BOIL 175 

not merely, like other desires, occasionally conflict with 
tlie piirHuit of wealth, but accompany it always as a drag 
or im[)ediment, and arc therefore inseparal^ly mixed np 
in the consideration of it. Political Economy considers 
mankind as occupied solely ^ in acquiring and consuming 
wealth." 

But thus to frame a system of economics upon the as- 
sumption of the perfect, unintermitted, unimpeded action 
(;f one, and that not always the most potential, of many 
human motives, is it not, as Dr. Whewell has said, ^ as if 
the pliysical geographer should construct hisschenic in rec- 
ognition of gravitation alone, disregarding the yjower of 
cohesion in preserving the original structure of the earth's 
surface, and should tlius reach the conclusion that all the 
mountains must at once run down into the valleys and the 
face of nature become a ])lain ? In much the same way the 
economist of the a priori school disregards the original 
structure cf industrial society, the separation of classes 
and nations, the obstructions offered by differences of race, 
religion and speech,^ the effects of strangeness and ap»pre- 

' If Mr. Mill had Raid, " Political economy considerB mankind solely 
as occupied in ac(juiring and consuming wealth," the statement would 
liave ))een un<;xceptionabIe. But if " Political economy considers man- 
kind an occupied nolely in acquiring and consuming wealth," Political 
economy considers mankind most falsely ; and the results in economi- 
cal reasoning of that unwarranted assumption have been most mis- 
chievous. Political economy is not bound to consider mankind so far 
as they are occupied in anything else than in acquiring and consuming 
wealth ; but it is bound in simple honesty not to c/jnsider them as oc- 
cupied in acquiring and consuming wealth when they are not, and to 
a degree they are not. 

* Introduction to R. Jones' Pol. Econ. 

' The effects of speech-differences in preventing the easy and rapid 
flow of labor are clearly to be seen in France and Scotland. The 
greater number of the Bas Bretons cannot speak or understand French, 
and are hence confined more closely to their native fields, than the 
people of any other section. [Report of H. B. M. Consul Clipperton, 
1872, p. 160.] 

The coramissionerB of the Scotch Census of 1871 found the influ 



176 Tiib: }Y.\ai:s question. 

luMision oi i'li;iiiu-c, tlu> I'oiistrainls (»!' ii;-iior;iin't' and supiM"- 
stitiiMi, tho attarlmu'iils iif 1u)Mu\ I'tMintry and iVionds, tlui 
hel}>U'Ssm>ss ot" nicn in new oi-i'iipatioiis, thojoalousy of im- 
|H>rtod Inlx*!',' and ju'rhajts niDiv than all (>lsi\ the inhihition 
of migration, in tlio case of ]HM'haj^s the vast niajority of 
the race, h\ the want of tlie supplies of fiuxl and money 
noeessary to their renu>val and immediate snhsistenee. 

Does the eompai'istMi seem extravai^-ant 'I Lin>k at iMiina. 
There is found a ]>o[iulatii>n ot' thi-tH' ov ti>ur hnndi'i'd 
inillii>ns, o{ w hi>se ujoiie of life and means of snhsisteneo 
tra\ellei's i2,'ive aeeiumts that are simply slnn-Uini!;; reduced 
to tiii> vile>t t'ood, the viU>st elothinj^-, the vilest slu>lter, or 
none at all of the latter twoidasses of assumed necessaries. 
()ppi^siti> tlii'ir i>\vn huul lies a re^'ion of i^'reat fertility, 
containing- vast expanses with an avera^'O pojndatiou of 
tr(>m one to four, six or ti>n to the sipnire mile. Why has 
not this mountain run down into this valley: Why have not 
untidd millions poured \\\^o\\ our sliores to relieve the fear- 
t'nl intei-nal press\iri> of the (\>lestial l'jupiri> ^ The rea- 
sons are \oo fauiiliar to nei>il to be stateil. The fact is 
what we wish to use here. What a commentary on tho 
political ei'onomy which has been ri'artnl on the assump- 
tiiui (d' the absolute moliility of labor! Three or four 
hundred million Ohinesesutferin<>" tho oxtromity of misery 
fttluune; OajSt'J Chinese in tho United States in 1S70, 
and that, after tho energetic! recruiting of Mr. Koopmans- 

«>m'i> v>f tills oi\ust< vt>n' powcvfiil in pri'vtMithij:; t<iiuj;ration from flu> 
nortluTu uml wostoni pints of Si-otliunl, im-liutini:: tlio Islos. whoro the 
(hiflii" is t<till spokon. [Hoport p. 'JO. rf. -Ith lu^port ^1S70> on tho cm- 
j>K\vnu>nt of womon niut oliildi't>n in Agr., p. llTd 

' Miss Miirtineau notos tho jotilousy of " iiwportod hvbor " ^from Ire- 
land") duriujj tho Napoloonio wars. [Hist Vlnsjlaml I.;5;{3.| Even so Into 
ns lS4t!, tho oommittoo on Hailwuv l,aborors roportod that not only did 
tho Irish and tho Scotch not work on the saino i?ansjs with tho Kng. 
lish navvies, but tlioy were kept apart fmin each other. [Keport p. 5.] 
There was especial jeaUnisy manifested toward the Irish importations. 
[Ibid. p. 50, 77.] 



FAILURE OF EMIGRATION: 177 

choop and his emigrant-runners! The original struct- 
ure of that mountain, at least, lias withstood the effects of 
gravitation with not a little success. Popocatapetl has 
lost a larger proportion of his bulk, in the last one hun- 
dred years. 

J3ut we may turn to a people less strangely constituted 
and less strongly conserved than the Chinese ; a people 
longer in contact with the western world, and in blood, 
speech and faith far less removed from the nations of 
Europe. The inhabitants of Jiritish India have been 
moved even less than those of China, by the pressure of 
population, to seek relief in more sparsely settled porti<jns 
of the globe. With the wages of manual labor at 3d. a y^ 
day in good times, and with a scarcity amounting to famine 
on an average once in four or five years, the East Indians 
respect the " original structure " by which they were 
placed on the great Asiatic peninsula, and meet their fate 
where they were born, without thought of change. 
Wages may rise to any height in America and Australia, 
but the people of India are even unconscious of any im- 
pulse to emigration ; and with oriental stoicism and fatalism 
abide in their lot, like the everlasting hills that guard their 
northern frontier. 

Surely we need not seek more such illustrations to 
justify Dr. Whewell's comparison. In these two instances, 
we have seen nearly half the human kind bound in fetters of 
race and speech and religion and caste, of tradition and 
habit and ignorance of the world, of poverty and inepti- 
tude and inertia which practically exclude them from the 
competitions of the world's industry. 

In turning now to consider this matter of the power of 
labor to protect itself, by migration or otherwise, among 
peoples of a higher industrial civilization, we need to pro- 
ceed somewhat more analytically. Let us discuss this 
question under two titles : 

1st. The migration of laborers from place to place. 



m 



Tina WMHcs (,\titcsrio.\. 



'Jil. ( 'lmiif.',o of ()rrii|tiil luti, 

Ul. 'I'lio liiifj;nili<i|i III' litliiii-. \N'li,V nliiMilil liiliiil'CM'M 
iiimmI III niiuiiilo lit nil ( \\\\y iitil nluy iiinl wuiK in llinir 
lull! MiiMimtMil iiiviiU no lli(M<.s|M>inlilui'«> (»!' I'ui'iHt ; wUy 

lilliMllii llllh W ilhin lin ilU'lll'I'tuI 'i 

ll II'. llin lllHM|ll|ll i|n\ olii|i|niMll ul | >i >|>llllll ioll 1111(1 illtlllM'- 
\[\ lliiil iiiiiil>ii Iho lii'"iimiii'.', ul iii(i>| III' liiiMliBti'tirirtCrt ol' 
liilioi liiiliiMlrv Mini |>o|iiihil loll iniitil, it Irt ovIdiMil, llli 
lii^-nlhiM' I lil'iitl'.-liiMil IIioomIiI'ii ii\|piiI hI IimIIi, ii|' liuiriol' 
|iii\Vi*l' mitl III' IH'iiilurllull will rnlliiW, oil llin niiu liiill*! ; 
ijuhliliiliiiii, hi|iiMliii', mill |ioi'liM|in niMi'Viitiiiii, mi llir hIIiim'. 
Iwilmi' uill niillri Imllt Iiimii tml liiMu;^', wliri'i^ it 1m wmiiIi'iI, 
mill IVtiiii lioiiim' vvliiM'o il in iiiil wmiloil Nuw in I'ik^i, 
tluij'it Im nvor rmiiiil II liitlillilv ill |iii|iiihil lull mul iinliiHh'y 

to ^'I'llW ll|i|ll I , |i\ l<ll lIliMlt'll nil l<ii||<l|l|i>lln M|i|ioiU' lO I'U- 
liuilii iiiirluiii'jiMi ; wliilo III) iinw raili>oi'tiii Im^ill In iipo^ 
nilo III lliiwiuriul or |iuliliriil lilo ul ;i ciiiniiiiiiiilv, wliluh 
lliiiv iiul M'I'V (lill'iM'ontl^V llU'rrl lliiMll, NVIu'l'oVtM' llivtM'- 
^•;«iiiiM< tipiirm'rt, tliiM'n 1h (llBtrowH, At liiiicM ilm nH'ocI, Im 
hIiiiuhI. iiihliiiilmiiMiiiH, wlioii hiiililoii ciilmiiitirri oviM'litko 
llio |iiMMllitll' illillintri(>ri ul Htiltrh mill oitioh. At tliiiiHi llio 
i^iXwt \* NVroll^'Ikt n» ^ruilimllv lui llm ruin ul' ii wnll iiilo 
wliuMO Hoaiiirt «niiu> bIow iimliiiiiif^' viiiu Iiiim llirunt. itn 
tlln'uu, iio\(M' lo ho wltliilnivvii till htuiio in lliiuwn iVuiii 

hti'lir. N illiilMMiin^n illllnlrnliullti lili;L<,lll l>o ill.'lWII I'l'iUM 

hliitui'v Hi>*l I'nnii tlu' hliitihlicfi of |»i'o(liu'tioii, ul' thin \v\\' 
(iiMii'v to «llvtM'goiUH> l)ot\vu()|i |ioi)ulutioii HUll Imitititi')' i ' 



* TltK Kitllling fi'Hinii oiviiHm\ nliioKinij' iiuikln^' In MnHlmnl In In* 
IrttiiBfoi'i'iul fi'uiii IIh fmimn' Hful ul Nrnwioli, 'Tlin whkIimi nninnfuo 
tni'«> liKH, willtin living innniiiiy, inigiivlMil l'i'iii\t I'.nnoN iiml SiiltUlK in 
llin Nni'lli, Holwiuni IHft'J niul iWtll ooiMilivil iv tulllny nU' In llu> ninw 
lin i<niliiH>lilt>t\v inHnufttolniv uf Irtilivint unil Sonllunil, wlilolt \\\- 
viilvoil IV I'tnlnollmi ill lilt' niimlinr itf pinnnnfi jinililuvini iif Utt.UOO 
(HUlUlUml .lunniiil \ \ I \' .Mil .) Aloml IMlll, Un> Mngllnli |ii>\v<n^liii>in 
imnmni tlit> iklmulnlo ilrndnotiiMi \<( iin liiilnnli',Y wlilrli pn|i|Mn'(iMl \)<M), 
(100 winlunt'ii In lt'liuiilin'». (Ilnil, WN'III. Ifil Hi>i«niUiglv |>i'llv 
oluVII^H^n III (udIiIuii will iiflrii |>ii<itiit'i> \vliti> I'lMirliiiig rl)\<i<ln ill |>ri>iliii< 



MoyiilMhlN'I'H ()//' INDIini'liV, 370 

uiul it will 1)(! Jiol; Ichh inlovuRlin^ !,<» iiofio tho inf-osHfinl; 
HtntiJf vibniiioiiH of iiidnHlry wliidi \'VA[n\m m\ )i,Iiiioh(; diiily 
rotuljlliJ liKWil of |Mi|iiil;iiii)ii, iJiiui \,it wrnvl. iJifw-tMil'i-iU of 
tIi()H(i p;rciiX (ijcliciil cliiui^i^H wliii'li Lriumloi' IJk! hfuil; of 
coiiiiii(!i'ci)i,| (5in|»ii'n, ,'i,ii(| Iciivc, cil.irtH ii,ii(| (foiiiiLrioH for- 
hiikcM ;iiii| :i,Iiii()hI. loiv'ol I.cii IM-Jiind. 

Hiuili Ixiin^' Uic (uiiduiicy (W iii(|iiH(-ry to ootJiiHioiml or 
|)(!f!()(li(', tii(»v('iiiuiil,, tho iiiuliilily of liiboi' ' bocioinoH, iuhIoi' 
till- llicory ol' coi(i[)oti!-i<»ii, Mil (iHHoiitiiiJ condition ol' itu 

(lull, Mr, Miili,liii« Hlutos thiU- tUo «id»Htlt.uttou of slioo ribbons fop 
buukluM wflM ft severe blow, long Mi by Hlindluld and JJlrnilngiiftm. 
" On II, hiiiiill'H'fifiivld and wit,li lues nolorlnly," wiys ii, writer In tli« Allio- 
iiiiiiiiii, " lliidiHiiiiil U'ligi'dy of {.lid coLUmi I'lunlnn, 1h uniicUtd ovtiry ynar 
111 oiH) or u.iiiil,li(ir of our f^i'niil, clUi^w. Kvury Uiiim fiiMiiioii hhIhcIh ii, 
ni*w niiititi'liil for druHfi, or a ntiw tiivdiillon wiiixtrcuddH old coiiLrl- 
viiiii^i'M, workman iiro ilirowii out of iitii|iloyni(inl,," I'rof, llo^urt!) glvis 
tliii following plijuiuil, illiitiU'iiUon of Uio nffnol, of (dmny«s In Uih in«r« 
fiiMJiloii of (IriiMfi. " A year OP two ago every woman who iimda any 
pntuninloii to dmWM iiwiordlng to tlin ciiBtoni of tlm day, surronndftd 
limwdf wltli (1/ congH»'lH« of iiamlbdntmd l)on|.ti ltiM»iii.id that (ifty 
t(»ii« of rrliiolliiit wiro witnt tiirimil out wnoMy from tbo facto i'Ioh 
f-Iilidly III Vorkhlili'H, 'riio faMJiJon liaH \iw.mi\ away and tlio dniiiaiid 
/or tliH miitmlal and tli*', lalior ban ciiamtd, 'rii(nimtnd«of |)itrHoii« oncw 
tiiigagttd 111 tliiw prodiictlon ai'« now rndiiBiid to (infon-od Idlnimss, op 
coiiHtralniid to botalio tlioniHidvuH to Horna otlun' oficupatlou, Again, 
II f<»w yinu'H ago, wonmn divtNMod tboinsolviis iibditlfiiliy wltli ribbons. 
'I'lils fawliion liaw al«o eliangod | wbdrri a linndrud yards ^f^imi sold, ono 
Ih lianlly |Hii'c,Iiati(id now, and tlm looiii« of a iiiiiltltiido of silk 
opi-ratlvHM iiro Idbi, 'I'o (|iiot<i anotliHi- iiiHtanc.n, At tlid priiMcnt tlnui 
woiiHiii urn |d(in,Mi'.d to walk about barnloiadifd. Tlio straw plaUitrH of 
Undfoi'dftiiirn, Mucks, Hditfonlsliini anil I<!sm«ix am nidiK-nd Muddcnly 
from a condltloiM)f toldi-abio prosporlty to onn ol' piniit |«.vijty nnd 
distress," (I'ol, Kcon,, lH((li, |»i», 77-H,) 

' But It may bo said, If lndustr.y niiaii.i.iiic, |..,|.iilii,ti.)ii, ami wages 
biioonm rddiicnd, this of itself constitiitcri a ifiason for Industry tr> ruturn, 
as It will liavo tliii lul vaiitafjtd of clmap labor, 'I'IiIh in mucli an if ono 
sboiilil say; tliw approacb of cold IikIiuuih sliivcring: slilvoring is of 
tho naturn of (ixurclsn : oxerrsistt Induces warnitll ; tlicrcforc a man 
may not frec/n on a Minndsota pralrlo in an icH storm, wiili tli<-, ilor 
rnoiiifitdi'at 40 dtignuis bolow Kuro ; iiiKMiiilcnil tlui coldfi ji, ^mIc, llni 
ijiuri', he, will ttbaliW, and, COnSt'JI4Clill_y, l,li<-, wiui/h r Ik-, will I/'- 



IHO 77/W W.H/ti'S QUh'STIdN, 

\\v\\ \nn\\'^, ll in t>l" fixirno not ntn-nnniuv lli.il lln' wliulo 
ImmIv of lid'urd'h rtlhMiliI l>o (•I'jj^iini/.tnl liUo u Tui lur Inltc, 
pm'ktul uotl HiuMN'il roiulv I'ur lli^lit. The ^rt'iil nuijorilj oT 
Iwluirorn will lunor l>n rot|iur<Ml lo nmvt' iil nil ; ImiI an it 
will hIwuvii iMi>\«' lluit. (<r [\\oi\o \\lu> loulil ^',t>, miuiy will 
liol, ami »>r |lu>iu> who woiiUI g'«>, UlHIiy i'uniui|,\\o iiuiy 
I'tiiil)' Hiiy thill lh»i lahoring population in movim' lilvclv to 
l»o luoi'«i I'ouipli^lt'lv iM(»l>ili/,otl hv iutollii;'tMifo iii\tl llir 
])O^Ht>0itlon ol pit'porl V, ihiiu in tliuiiniMo in oiiirr lo i'i'IhUm' 
it. tn^rtaiii that junt {\\v aiuoimt ol' iuo\ niu'iil I'loiu iiuliintry 
to iiuliinlrv, aiul iVom plafi^ to plafo, \\ hifh iiiav l>t^ iiMpiiiiMl, 
will li(i olVtH'ltnl wilh tlu< iuii\iuuiin ot Ion ami dotav. 
SlU^h luMllg lh<< mn-onnilv lor llio molulilv of l:ilu>r lo 
tMtuUlo it to I'ollow i\\y> luovonu^uln, arroiiulahU^ aittl 
in\ainUMii»lal>lo, ol' imlimliv, it in tu>l iicodliil to ^o into 
tl>»i hi-.loi_v ol' iMnii;i'aliou lo nhow ihal lahof hart HUJUVU- 
Iv, in any roimtiv, pon«rn,s»>d llu< roailiiionn aiul activity 
Nvhii'h anHwtM'otl tho rtnpiirfMUMit. Tho Utiiti'tl Slalrrt' 
porhapn nlVoivl lh»^ hii^^hrnl ovampio of a hodv ol lahor pi'o- 
\n\vvy\ ami inpiipptul to mooK itn lu^rtt luarkt^t, whoi'«nor that 
luarkot \uav ho\ ami Aiin'iicann, familiar with tlu^ prompt 
Hiul OUHy tlow ol popiilalion hort\ art* liuhlo lo mulor-csti- 
iuut»> tho dillhultioM whirh honi^t tin* liKo mov»*nuMit« ill 
almoKt auv olhm- roiintrv i>\' tho wt>rhl. lt\ part, tho at^iv- 
ity i>l' lahor in ihi* I'mUnl Slalon in »luo lo tin* gomu'unit)' 
iA' nalmo with \in, whuh allowt* »u largo H mai'g'iu of OX- 
pomliliin^ In ntill groalor imnisuri\ it in *lm> to tho \vi»lo 
ililViusion of ii»fv>rmatiou thri>iii;h tlu^ pross ami tho post- 



» In 1H70, 7.500.000 j^t^vwuin >>( (Uo muiv«> i»>|M(l«lioi\ \v<<i<< li\ U\« \n 
Hti\(«i« oU>oi' tluui Ihimn of tl»oir l>U'll», Sfr roiiMViH l{o|u>rtrt, "'I'liti 
<»n lit*u>»li»l AivuMlottu," p«v» ("lioviUlor. " ttuH ll»i« \\\ o\>»uinou »itl\ 
\\\v> 'I'ttHttV. tl»Hl 1(0 It* i>«ott«up«Hl. uot t>i»t«l>UHh»ul. o« \\w m>ll l>t> tnuulii 
u|«»n." TmvolHlu iho t'utlwl Stut«'H, p. \W. \\\ KuhhIh, too. \\w frt'o 
dom of mlgi'utiou fi'»>j\» pltvoo to j>l«oo. Iu>k fnujuoullv l>i>ou noloil. 
Htr Aroh, Allnon ivIlill'^Un llvlw loll»o 'I'lvrtwr l>loo»l. Minloiv of tCin<t»|>o 
XV, HU, Soo Sir A Huolu\i»«n'rt tvoooutvl of Uio iuilu«tvi«l uoiUMvld o( 
14u««l»k. lu'i'v>rt.-i, 11. ft M r.MiMulrt. oto, lt<70. l>. iiOl. 



MOV li'.MICNTIl <lli' l'<)l-lll,A'l l<)N. VM 

H\)\i'.(',. \'<r\iH,\tA in ctill t/lcM.ii;r <\i:l/V<;i; li; i(, lUlC 1,0 tlxj 

tiltitoii itf.fi'cci tuxuul !ui'l )>oliti'%'i,l in:<;<l')Ui wlilcli |>r<!VRil«, 
Ifj ilKMibwr'juM; oC iJi'/fc IxirrM^rH ao'l niHU'iritowt', ' wliU'Ji, to 
tin; in));(.hit!ifif, of oMcr l;ifi(|><, an; uw rnucl) a »fiutf,<'j' u( 
(;<iiir'<; ■,ti: tlic, )irf)it,-i,t.io;),', l,o liin {>ow<;r of r<!U';liin;^ ii\>'\t;i'.iM 
wit)) liii', ;(,rrf). 'J'lir? cxf-^jpiion;, >,<> fliic, n;;tfilfi<>«» to ColloW 
ififliiklry in if^', tiiovctitctiiM, /U'<; foti;i(J unton^ i\n'(;<i <;\itMi',cM'. 
tlir; newly r.nifui'tiputc'l (vIji,v<;h of tlx', >^,ont)i, if/ fCM\K:<'i to 
wlio;o no (;;()<l;in;if,iofi if. r<;'j((i/'<;'j, t)i;it j(0»'l,ion of our 
woni(!n wIjo un; i:(>\u\K:\\t'A to cmU-.v \]k; ^(;in',ni\ iiinrUcX i'or 
hi\)<)t; and, luntly, our i'oriu^u pojMilution, (ttt<\ urnofi^ th'inc 
tli<! dlMuhility iu<\'t<'MUui cxiHi.H irtn'tuly ftmon;^^ thow) wfio 
IjttVt} Ixson loft in oar cui'tcrn ''jf,i<;;i hy tlx; <;x)jW(mtlofi of 
tlio irrirni^mtin// foiv;*!. 

" No on'! i;iui i,ni,v<'] nntfU in \.\i<; V/dfi wilJ/otii i.iw.'tuii; 
tliut, wItJi no (■.in.'ill );co()ort,io)j of o u r va>»t; foiYjJji^fi <,'/)ofn<;nt, 
0(;<'A\\i''i,li<in li'. 'Jot<;rfnin<;'J liy u, Uh'mX'miu t}/at In ,'(/'/;i'l<;nb(,), 
or |>n),d,i'',;i.lly b<;yon'l »,}/<{ control of indivi'JnalH ; that tl/<!>-,<; 
l>(;(;(>lo un: doifi;^ what thcy ttro (Joifjg hmnum ilioy am 
w)M;ro tlioy an;. A n'J tfio roa*«on for hijcIi a wliol<;i',alo ^tiil;- 
j(;ction of lahor to itM <uy';ntfi>,Uuuu'.H, i^fonnd in ihn rtihcMl' 
htU'/tmucM, i]ni prottimuomtuim, awl wo may my tho tiunul- 
ini)\mu;m oi' tlio inonl^ratiofi to tl«; ( In/tf/l Htat(j» («lrif?(5 tfu) 
fjayx of tin; IrlHli fa»nino. Of all wl/o ))av<? rjonioto uh in tho 
pant t won ty-HOvtjn yoarn, by far tl<'5 groator partliavo r'/>rn<; 
iin|;rovid<'/] and uninxtr/icUj'J for the (}Xperi«nc'0« of tlioir 
Ani'irican lifo. W}j<5t})r5r (Mihlio<l fairly oiit of tl»<;ir own 
e/;nntry hy tJio f/roKHnro of population, or OHcapir/g from 
military c</n«<jriptIon,ormovo<J hy rcMtli'MitcM ntul tho spirit 

* " No cttuiKJ Imw, perljttpM, irKrt'«> prtntu>U>4l, io «vefy ntnptu^, i\m 
y,(;ni',rti] UnprovcjficM of, Dii', f'liUM HtnU'M iUtw tht; u.hmu<'A', of ihitm 
nyr.U:iiiii of inU;niH,l rcnir'n-^fum mh\ /^onopolj^, w)/i';)/ i'/oui\tnii; Ut tVni' 
i'lti^nrt', ilc! «!,«,(/<! of ntiffii-Ay In oi,\it;r rvx/nt, »•)<?«, ,No )«iw» ftzixt )i<5r«5 
<\\rwX\y or indirfrxiy <'/ini\mim iiit',ii U> it, |>a.H,icu)«,f oi'AiiitfiA,ioti or 
plfl/'/j, or i;xr,\iiiiiin( »,iiy nii'i'At'.ti from smy hmncJi U*', iitny nX ti,iiy f,lf«/j 
i\t'iuk profU'r Ut piirtmc. Uniimtry 'itt in cvi-iy rf.nfit-.rX trcj; ti.nii tiiiffX- 
l^mV—AWmt Hftllitiin. 



183 THE WAGES QUESTION: 

of adventure, or buniing with the gold fever, or alhired 
l)j the false reports of relatives and acquaintances on this 
side the water, they have fallen on our shores, the inuni- 
gratory impulse exhausted, thbir money gone, with no 
definite purpose, ■with no special preparation, to become 
the victims of their place and circumstances. There is a 
tendency at every harbor which lies at the debouche of a 
river, to the formation of a bar composed of mud and 
sand brought down by the current which yet has not the 
force to scour its channel clear out to deep water. And 
in much the same way, there is a tendency at every port 
of immigration to the accumulation, from the failure of the 
immigrating force, of large deposits of more or less help- 
less labor which a little assistance from government would 
serve to carry far inland, and distribute widely, to the 
best advantage at once of the immigrants and of the indus- 
try of the country. 

" Of those foreigners whose occupations have deter- 
mined their location, the most notable instances are the 
"Welsh and the Scandinavians. 

'' AVliy should there be four times as many Welsh in 
Pennsylvania as in New York: AVhy four times as many 
in Ohio as in Illinois ? The reason is obvious : the 
Welsh are famous iron miners and iron makers. They 
have come out to this country under intelligent direction, 
and have gone straight to the place wliere the}'^ were 
wanted. Quite as striking has been the self -direction of 
the Swedish and Norwegian immigrants. Four states, all 
west of Lake Michigan, contain ninety-four per cent of all 
the Norwegians in the country and sixty-six per cent of 
the Swedes. It is probably not owing so much to superior 
foresight or to ampler means that the British Americans 
" in the States" have, as it would appear, located them- 
selves according to their itulustrial preferences, as to the 
fact of their original proximity and the advantages they 
found in this for obtaining information, for easily reaching 



THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 183 

the place of their choice, and for easily recovering them- 
selves in case of mistake Of all our foreign 

elements, the Irish is that which would seem, from a study 
of their occupations, to have been most subject to circum- 
stances. The conditions of the forced and most painful 
emigration from Ireland must be held to account amply 
for this." 1 

With exception, then, of the three classes named, there 
has been, in the fortunate state of freedom from social and 
legal restraints, in the great generosity of nature on our 
behalf, and in the general intelligence of our population, 
if not that perfect competition which the economists 
assume in their reasonings, at least a very active resort of 
labor to market. Our advantages in this respect are, how- 
ever, highly exceptional. In general it is found as Adam 
Smith has expressed it, tliat ''of all sorts of luggage, man 
is the most difhcult to be transported." 

Mr. Frederick Harrison ^ has thus set forth this difti- 
cnlty of moving labor to its market : 

" In most cases, the seller of a commodity can send it 
or carry it about from place to place, and market to mar- 
ket, with perfect ease. He need not be on the spot; he 
generally can send a sample ; he usually treats by corre- 
spondence. A merchant sits in his counting house, and 
by a few letters or forms, transports and distributes the sub- 
sistence of a whole city from continent to continent. In 
other cases, as the shopkeeper, the ebb and flow of pass- 
ing multitudes, supplies the want of locomotion in his 
wares. Ilis customers supply the locomotion for him. 
This is a true market. Here competition acts rapidly, 

I The Advance, Dec. 10, 1874. In the last century the Irish emigra- 
tion was from an altogetlier different class. " The spirit of emigration 
in Ireland," said Arthur Young in 1777, " appears to be confined to two 
circumstances, the Presbyterian religion and the linen manufacture." 
— Pinkerton, iii. 808. 

» Fortnightly Review, III. 50. 



184 THE WAGES question: 

fully, simply, fairly. It is totally otherwise with a day- 
laborer, who has no commodity to sell. He must himself 
be present at every market, which means costly, personal 
locomotion. He cannot correspond with his employer; 
he cannot send a sample of his strength ; nor do employ- 
ers knock at his cottage door." 

Of the freedom of movement among the states of 
Europe, we get an approximate measure from the follow- 
ing Census Statistics, ^ which are about twenty-six years 
old. Switzerland, a small country bordering three great 
nations, and having the languages of all thi-ee spoken as 
native tongues in her own limits, contains the largest pro- 
portion of foreigners to total population, viz., 2.99 per 
cent. Holland (romes next of those on our list, with 2.32 
per cent ; Belgium next with 1.76 ; France with 1.06 ; 
Denmark with 0.93 ; the United Kingdom last, with 0.27 
per cent. 

But the statistics of international migration afford a very 
inadequate and often a very deceptive notion as to those 
quick and apt movements of population which anticipate in- 
dustrial distress and prevent the breaking down of the labor 
market, with all its consequences in the degradation of the 
working classes. To move from one county to another, 
or even only from one parish to another, would (!ost incom- 
parably less than to move across the sea, and would often 
be quite as effectual. And here the systematic writers in 
economics commonly assume the complete mobility of 
labor. 2 Yet we find that the impulse which is sufficient 
to send laborers from England to Australia, is not always 
sufficient to send them from Devon to Durham. Prof. 
Senior, in one of his illustrations, supposed that, in case of 

' Statistical Journal, xx. 1^. 

^ " The assumption commonly made in treatises of political econ- 
omy, is tbat, as between occupations and localities within the sam^ 
country, the freedom of movement of capital and labor is perfect." [J, 
E. Cairnes, " Some Leading Principles," etc., p. 363.] 



THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 185 

a local failure of employment, laborers would follow their 
landlord from Leicestershire to- London, but not from Lon- 
don to Paris. In real life, however, the difficulty of mi- 
gration is not so graded. Thus Mr. Chadwick cites 
instances ^ of laborers in the south and southwest of Eng- 
land, who had heard of America, but had not heard of 
Lancashire, and could not be persuaded to go there, on 
oifer of favorable emploj'raent. ^ Mr. Muggeridge bears 
quite as explicit testimony in his evidence before the com- 
mittee of 1855. 

" The workman never goes out of his village, and is as 
ignorant as a cart-horse of what is going on elsewhere, 
even in his own county. I found on going into the North 
of England, that there was a demand everywhere for 
laborers ; but when I got to the South and West of England 
I heard general complaints of the superabundance of the 
laboring population, and consequentlj' of high poor rates. 
I then suggested to the government a plan for removing, 
with their own consent, the unemployed portion of the 
population. I think that, altogether, something like 
17,000 persons who were paupers and wholly out of em- 
ployment in the South and West of England were, in the 
!North of England put into most lucrative employment." 

Q. " At the time to which you refer, there was, I 
presume, a great demand for labor in the Korth of Eng- 
land ? " 

A. " There was ; but I do not think that the people in 
the South and West of England ever heard of it. I carried 
the news of it into Suflblk and Norfolk also. They knew 

> Statistical Journal, xxviii. p. 12. 

* A part of this effect, viz., the preference of emigration from the 
kingdom over migration within the kingdom, is due to the ineffable 
stupidity of the act of 12 and 13 Victoria (c. 103) which enables guar- 
dians of the poor to borrow money to send laborers out of the country ; 
but does not authorize them to spend a penny in sending a person from 
the parish of his residence to another part of the kingdom where em- 
ployment may be freely offered. 



186 TUE WAGES QUESTION. 

no nun-e of it there, than they did of what might be going 
on in North America." ^ 

Tliis inniiobility of hihor has of conrse powerfully 
affected wages. A century ago Adam Smith -wrote:** 
" The wages of labor in a great town and its neighborhood 
arc frequently a fourth or a fifth part — twenty or twenty- 
five per cent — higher than at a few miles distance. Eigh- 
teen pence a day may be reckoned the cominiju price of 
labor in London and its neighborhood. At a few miles 
distance, it falls to fburteiMi and fifteen pence. Ten })ence 
may bo reckoned its price in Etlinburgh and its neighbor- 
hood. At a few miles distance it falls to eight i)cnce, the 
usual price of common labor through the greater part of 
the low country of Scotland, where it varies a good deal 
less than in England. Such a difference of pi' Ices which 
it seems is not always sufficient to traiisjjort a man from 
one parish to another, would necessarily occasion so great 
a transportation of the most hidky commodities, not only 
from one foint to cmother, hut from one end of the king- 
dom, almost from one end of the too/'ld, to another, as would 
soon reduce them more nearly to a leveir '^ 

One might suppose that the vast in(U'easc in the facilities 
for transportation of freight and passengers, and for the 
diffusion of information through the post-office and the 
printing-press, would have gone far in this century to 
i-emove the obstruction which then retarded the flow of 

' Uupcjrl on tho Stoppage of Wages, p. 173. 

•' W.iilth of Nations, I. 79. 

^ In discussing his extremely valuable Returns before the Statistical 
Society, Mr. Purdy says : " It would appear that no commodity in this 
country presents so grciat a variation in price at one time, as agricul- 
tural labor, taking the money wages of the menas the bestexponent of 
its value. A labt)rer's wages in Dorset or Devon are bari^ly half the 
sum given for similar services in the Northern parts of England." — 
Statistical Journal, xxiv. 344. Mr. Purdy refers, as among the causes of 
this, " to the natural vis inertia) of the class. . . . and above all, 
a well founded dread of tho miseries of a disputed poor-law settlement 
in the hour of their destitution." 



THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 187 

labor to its market ; ' but the force of ignorance, timidity 
and superstition is not so easily broken. Prof. Fawcett 
writes : '• During tlie winter months, an ordinary agricul- 
tural laborer in Yorkshire earns thirteen shillings a week. 
The wages of a Wiltshire or Dorsetshire laborer, doing 
the same kind of work, and working a similar number of 
hours, are only nine shillings a week. This great differ- 
ence in wages is not counterbalanced by other considera- 
tions; living is not more expensive in Yorkshire than in 
Dorsetshire, and the Dorsetshire laborer does not enjoy any 
particular advantages or privileges which are denied to 
the Yorkshire laborer." ^ 

' Professor Rogers, in his History of Agriculture and Prices, ex- 
presses the opinion that not only the transport of freight, but the tran- 
sit of persons, was as free in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth, 
as in the eighteenth century. The roads were maintained in good 
order, chiefly by the monasteries, and travelling was then professional 
in many trades. The tiler, the slater, the mason, and the finer carpenter 
(who made furniture) were migratory. [Hist. I. 234-5 ]. Of a period a 
little later. Prof. Rogei-s says, " Labor travelled in those days (If\yO- 
1G20) as freely as now ; indeed, in the account books of Elizabeth, we 
find that mechanics for Greenwich and the Tower are procured from 
places as distant as Cardiff, Dorchester, Brighton, Bristol and Bridge- 
water." — [Statistical Journal, xxiv. 548.] 

The practice of travelling or " wandering " as it is called, which has 
come down from this period, still prevails extensively in Germany 
among the younger journeymen (" Herbergen") — see Mr. Petre's report 
on the condition of the industrial classes, 1870, p. 56. The ease with 
which the German artisans are "metamorphosed into Frenchmen, 
Englishmen, Italians, Americans or Turks" (Mr. Strachey, Ihid p. 507) 
has doubtless contributed to the freedom of their movement. Not 
less than 8,000 German workmen were reported at Mulhouse before 
the war of 1870. 

Consul Wilkinson reports that the settled population of the province 
of Macedonia is augmented in winter by five or six thousand itiner- 
ant artisans who quit their native mountains in central Albania, and 
distribute themselves over the province in quest of employment, [ibid 
p. 248]. M. Ducarre's report to the French assembly of 1875, notes the 
considerable proportions of the annual migration from Italy into Cor- 
sica, [p. 247.] 

2 Pol. Econ. p. 107. 



188 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

But while, in modification of the assumption of the 
complete mobility of population under economical im- 
pulses, we find such great and permanent differences 
in the remuneration of labor in neighboring districts, if 
we look to the condition of the lowest order of laborers in 
many European countries, we shall see reason not to 
assert many and large exceptions to the rule of mobility, 
but to deny the validity of the rule altogether. If we 
consider the population of the more squalid sections of 
any city, we can only conclude that, contrary to the 
assumption of the economists, the more miserable men are, 
the less and not the more likely they are to seek and find a 
better place in society and industry. Their poverty, 
their ignorance, their superstitious fears and, perhaps 
more than all, the apathy that comes with a broken 
spirit, bind them in their place and to their fate. To 
apply to human beings in their condition, maxims derived 
from the contemplation of the Economic Man, is little 
less than preposterous. Such populations do uot migrate ; 
they abide in their lot; sinking lower in helplessness, 
hopelessness and squalor; economic forces have not the 
slightest virtue either to give them higher wages, or to 
make them deservins: of hiffher washes. 



2d. I have spoken of change of location as a means of 
restoring the due relations of population and industry 
which have, as has been shown, an incessant tendency 
to grow apart. Let us now consider the change of occu- 
pation, within the same locality, as a second means to 
that end. Not only may the industry of different places 
or sections develop with great irregularity relatively to 
their respective populations ; but in any place or section 
the proportions borne by the several branches of industry 
are liable to frequent and extensive alterations, from the 
effects of changing fashions, from the exhaustion of the 



THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 189 

materials which have formed the basis of production, 
from the invention or discovery of substitutes, or from the 
growth of other habits of living in the community. In- 
deed, as between the two great divisions, agriculture 
and manufactures, there is not only a constant tendency 
to change, but there is the highest improbability of the 
proportions long remaining the same, the reason being the 
more rapid and extensive introduction of machinery, and 
the more minute subdivision of work in the latter than in 
the former department. 

Again, as between any two mechanical pursuits, the 
demand for labor is likely to be differently affected by 
change of fashion, by the application of new arts and 
the discovery of new resources. Thus, to consider a 
single cause, the productive power of a hundred hands 
engaged in the manufacture of boots and shoes was in- 
creased thirty per cent by the introduction of special 
machinery between 1860 and 1870. This is by no means 
an extreme example. The wholesale discharges of 
laborers from employment in the textile manufactures 
during the last quarter of the last century and the first 
quarter of the present, as the result of the successive inven- 
tions and improvements of machinery, required a readjust- 
ment of population to industry which amounted almost 
to a continuous revolution. In a greater or less degree, 
the need of such readjustment is constantly pressing upon 
labor, and if it fails to be effected or is effected partially 
and tardily, there will be a loss to labor, a two-fold loss, 
first, in that the laboring class will miss, in whole or part, 
the advantages of the opening employment, and second, 
in that the body of laborers remaining in the crowded 
occupations will trample each other down in their in- 
dividual eagerness to obtain work and wages, with all the 
consequences in the degradation of labor, which have been 
depicted in Chap. IV. 

A similar result may be brought about by changes in 



190 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

the comparative demand for the products of the several 
branches of manufactures. These changes are literally in- 
cessant, sometimes amounting only to a temporary quick- 
enin<i^ of production in some, and corresponding dulhiess 
in other departments: sometimes amountiui;- to the slow 
decay or even to tiie sudden destruction of industries 
which have engaiied large bodies of workmen. In in- 
stances of the former sort, the laborers concerned in depart- 
ments which suiter depression, simply hold on, in expecta- 
tion of returning demand and reviving business; while if 
certain branches of manufactures are peculiarly liable to 
such disturbances, that fact comes to be reckoned among 
the considerations' which determine the real, as contrasted 
with the nominal rate of wages therein. 

l>ut not infrequently such change of demand exhibits a 
persistency which brings to the body of laborers tradition- 
ally engaged in these industries the choice of CTicountering 
a general failure of employment, bringing them sooner or 
later to the condition of hopeless pauperism, or of seeking 
in some other department of industry, perhaps in some 
other laud, the means of supporting themselves and their 
families. 

l>ut while the irregular growth of different branches 
of industry would thus require a frequent readjustment of 
labor, if we assumed an equable growth of the populations 
which furnish the natural supply of such branches of indus- 
try, severally, there is the possibility of a further and more 
nrgent need of a readjustment arising out of the irregular 
growth of the latter. 

By the population M-hich furnishes the natural supply 
of labor in each branch of industry, I mean, simply, the 
offspring of families engaged therein. It will not be ques- 
tioned that there is at least a strong tendency within each 
trade to supply its own labor by its own increase. That 
tendency may, according to circumstances and character, 

> See p. 2G. 



THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 191 

be sIio;ht, or it may be very strong, or abnost irresistible. 
It differs from some- of the asserted tendencies on which 
we have had occasion to comment, in that it is a real and 
not an ideal tendency : all the weaknesses of human nature 
minister to make it powerful and effective. Now, there 
being an admitted disposition of children to settle down 
in their parents' occupation, the need of a readjustment of 
labor, which can only be effected through positive efforts 
and sacrifices, becomes greater on account of the irregular- 
ity in the natural increase of population within the dif- 
ferent branches of industry, which is wholly additional to 
the irregularity in the growth of those branches them- 
selves, viewed as furnishing employment to laborers. The 
rate of effective increase varies greatly within eacli such 
natural population, through differences both in the aver- 
age number of children to a family and in the proportion 
of children who survive infancy.' In agriculture, for 
instance, the social and vital conditions of the occupation 
encourage births, while pure air and food give the chil- 
dren born on the farm a better chance of life. On the 
other hand, in some occupations, domestic increase is 
almost practically forbidden. Occupations range all the 
way between these extremes, in this respect of their nat- 
ural supply of labor. Thus the census of Scotland, 1871, 
shows that there are 177 dependents to 100 bread-win- \^- 

' It is not merely by differences in the birth-rate and in the death- 
rate of these natural labor-populations, that the supply of labor is 
made to vary. The census of Scotland quoted above, shows that the 
proportion of males born varies greatly in the different occupations. 
Thus, among the workers in chemicals there are but 85.3 males to 100 
female children under five years of age ; among operatives in silk 
factories, there are 93.9, in cotton-factories, 95.8, in woolen factories, 
97.8 ; while among the agricultural population there are 105.2, among 
fishermen, 107.5, among general out-door laborers, 10G.6, among quarry- 
men and brickmakers, 107.8, and among railway laborers and navvies, 
117.1. See Report, p. 44. Of course the greater the proportional / 
number of males, the greater the supply of effective labor. 



193 THE WAGES QUESTIOIf. 

ners within the agricultural class, while there are but 122 
dependents to 100 bread-winners within the manufactur- 
ing class.^ Doubtless, some portion of this relative deii- 
ciency in the manufacturing class is due to the larger oppor- 
tunity for the employment of children productively in 
mechanical industry ; but doubtless, also, a considerable 
remainder testifies to the superior fecundity of the agricul- 
tural population, and the greater vitality of children bred 
in the country. 

Such being the occasion for a frequent readjustment of 
population within the several occupations, arising from 
great irregularity of growth in both population and indus- 
try, how far is labor able to respond to such economical 
necessities ? 

Adam Smith's treatment of this subject constitutes one 
of the most extraordinary phenomena of economical lite- 
rature. No TTian has dwelt more strongly than he on the 
difficulties which embarrass and delay the movement of 
laborers from place to place. It is his own phrase that 
man is "of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult to be 
transported." He saw in his own little island the wages 
of common, nnsldlled laborers ranging from eighteen pence 
to eight pence a day, while in the islands, just a bit smaller, 
to the west, he saw them lower by from twenty to forty 
per cent ; he saw "• a few miles distance," make a difference 
in the remuneration of the same sort of labor of " a fourth 
or a fifth part ; " he knew that such differences had existed 
for generations without any adequate movement of labor, 
new causes continually creating divergence faster than 
population conld close up the intervals ; and he exclaimed 
that a difference of prices which proved insufficient to 
carry a man to the next parish would be enough to carry 
the most bulky commodities " from one end of the king- 
dom, almost from one end of the world, to the other." 

» Report, p. 43. 



THE MOBILITY OF LABOB. 1U3 

Yet the same philosopher, a few pages on, treats the dif- 
ferences which appear in the remuneration of the different 
occupations as either imaginarj'- or else transient. It is 
thus he writes : " The whole of the advantages and disad- 
vantages of the different employments of labor and stock 
must, in the same neighborhood, be either perfectly equal 
or continually tending to equality. If in the same neigh- 
borhood there was any employment evidently either more 
or less advantageous than the rest, so many people would 
crowd into it, in the one case, and so many would desert it, 
in the other, that its advantages would soon return to the 
level of other employments. This, at least, would be the 
case in a society where things were left to follow their 
natural course."^ 

It would almost seem as though Dr. Smith deemed the 
obstacles which beset the movement of laborers from place 
to place, to be physical merely, and, since no physical 
difficulties stand in the wa}' of a change of occupation by 
the laborer while remaining in the same place, he saw no 
important, no note- worthy, obstacles to the free movement 
of labor from employment to employment. But if the 
obstacles which beset migration were physical merely, man, 
instead of being " of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult 
to be transported," would, with his own consent, be the 
easiest to be transported. It is because the difficulties 
which beset migration are, after all, mainly moral, that 
the statement quoted above is true. 

Economists writing since Adam Smith's time have gen- 
erally followed his lead in regarding the obstacles which 
hinder the movement of laborers within the several 
branches of industry as of little or no account. Some 
exceptions appear, but as Prof. Cairnes remarks, it is 
commonly assumed in treatises of political economy that 
between occupations, as between localities, in the same 

* Wealth of Nations i, pp. 103-4. 



194 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

country, the freedom of movement, for labor or for capi- 
tal, is perfect.' In 1874, however, that eminent economist 
brought forward his theory of "" Non-Competing Groups " 
in industry, a contribution of so much importance that I 
insert his statement substantially entire. Tlie form of 
Prof. C^airnes' opening is due to the fact that he is reply- 
ing to a '' school of reusoners " of M'hom Mr. F. 1). Longe 
was, we may assume, the individual most conspicuously 
in his view at the time, who hold the uK^vement of labor as 
between occupations to be practically nil. 

'' Granted, that labor once engaged in a particular occu- 
pation is practically committed to that species of occupa- 
tion, all labor is not thus engaged and committed. A 
young generation is constantly coming forward, whose 
capabilities may be regarded as still in disposable form. 
. . . The young persons composing this body, or others 
interested in their welfare, are eagerly watching the pros- 
pects of industry in its several branches, and will not be 
slow to turn toward the pursuits that promise the largest 
rewards. . . . On the other hand, while fresh labor is 
coming on the scene, worn-out labor is passing ofi'; 
and the departments of industry in which remunera- 
tion has from any cause fallen below tiie average level, 
ceasing to be recruited, the numbers of those employed 
in them will quickly decline, until su}>]ily is brought 
witliiu the limits of demand, and remuneration is restored 
to its just proportions. In this Avay. then, in the case of 
labor as in that of capital, the conditions for an effective 
ct>mpetition exist, notwithstanding the practical difficulties 
in the way of transferring labor, once trained to a particu- 
lar occupation, to new pursuits. But as I have already in- 
timated, fhe conditions are, in this case, recJi.ied onhj in a7i 
imjierfect manner. . . Iloc/i individual laborer can only 
c/ioose his eni_ployment irithin certain tolerahli/ loell-dejined 
limits. These limits are the limits set by the qnalitica- 

' Some Lead iug Piiucipleti, etc., p. oG"2. 



THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 195 

tions required for each branch of trade, and the amount of 
preparation necessary for their acquisition. Take an indi- 
vidual workman whose occupation is still undetermined, 
he will, according to circumstances, have a narrower or 
wider field of clioice ; but in no case will this be co-exten- 
sive with the entire range of domestic industry. If he 
belongs to the class of agricultural laborers, all forms of 
mere unskilled labor are open to him^ but beyond tliis lie 
is practieall}^ shut out from competition. The barrier is 
his social position and circumstances which render his 
education defective, while his means are too narrow to 
allow of his repairing the defect, or of deferring the return 
upon his industry, till he has qualified himself for a skilled 
occupation. Mounting a step higher in the industrial 
scale — to the artisan class, including with them the class 
of small dealers whose pecuniary position is much upon a 
par with artisans— here also within certiiin limits there is 
complete freedom of choice ; but beyond a certain range, 
practical exclusion. The man who is brought up to be 
an ordinary carpenter, mason, or smith, may go to any of 
these callings, or a hundred more, according as his taste 
prompts, or tlie prospect of remuneration attracts him ; 
but practically he has no power to compete in those higher 
departments of skilled labor for which a more elaborate 
education and larger training are necessary, for example, 
mechanical engineering. Ascend a step higher still, and 
we find ourselves again in the presence of similar limita- 
tions ; we encounter persons competent to take part in any 
of the higher skilled industries, but practically excluded 
from the professions. 

" It is true indeed that in none of these cases is the 
exclusion absolute. The limits imposed are not such as 
may not be overcome by extraordinary energy, self-denial 
and enterprise;' and by virtue of these qualities indi- 

1 " The founder of the cottou manafacture was a barber. The inven- 
tor of the power loom was a clergyman. A farmer devised the appli- 



V 



196 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

viduals in all classes are escaping everj day from the 
bounds of their original position and forcing their way 
into the ranks of those who stand above them. All this 
is no doubt true. But such exceptional phenomena do 
not aftect the substantial truth of our position. What we 
find, hi effect is, not a whole population competing indis- 
criminately for all occiqKitions, hut a series of industrial 
layers superimposed on one another, within each of lohich 
the various candidates for employment possess a real and 
effective power of selection, while those occupying the 
several strata are, for all purposes of effective co7npetitioji, 
practically isolated from each other.^ 

The consequences economically of this practical isola- 
tion of large industrial groups, must, on the first state- 
ment, strike the mind of the reader as very important and 
far-reaching. If this isolation exists, then there is not a 
tendency, through the operation of economical causes 
alone, to the equalization ])rimarily of wages throughout 
the several groups : and, derivatively, of the prices of the 
corresponding products of such groups. Prof. Cairnes 
does not flinch from carrying his theory to its proper con- 
sequences. Citing Mr. John S. Mill's law of International 
Values," he declares that this doctrine is manifestly appli- 
cation of the screw-propeller. A fancy -goods shopkeeper is one of the 
most enterprising experimentalists in agriculture. The most remark- 
able architectural design of our day has been furnished by a gardener. 
The first person who supplied London with water was a goldsmith. 
The first extensive maker of English roads was a blind man, bred to 
no trade. The father of English inland navigation was a duke, and 
liis engineer was a millwright. The first great builder of iron bridges 
was a stone mason, and the greatest railway engineer commenced his 
life as a colliery engineer." — Hearn's Plutology, p. 379. 

' Some Leading Principles, etc., pp. 70-3. 

* " That doctrine may be thus briefly stated : International values are 
governed by the reciprocal demand of commercial countries for each 
other's productions, or more precisely, by the demand of each country 
for the productions of all other countries as against the demand of all 
other countries for what it produces. . . Whatever be the eJc/iiiH*?- 



THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 197 

cable to all cases in wliich gi'onps of producers, excluded 
from reciprocal industrial competition, exchange their 
products. Such cases, as I have shown, occur in domestic 
trade, in the exchanges between those non-competing in- 
dustrial groups of which I have spoken." As applied to 
such groups, the law formulated by Mr. Mill would leave 
the average relative level of prices witliin each group to 
be determined by the reciprocal demand of the groups ; 
or, to abandon technical language, we have the result of 
large groups, each of which is left to meet its industrial 
fate by itself, without sharing in the advantages of other 
groups, or contributing to their welfare out of its own 
abundance ; a condition in which it can no longer be 
claimed that if one group be exceptionally prosperous, 
labor will flow into it from the outside, till the rate of 
wages therein is reduced to an assumed general average, 
and vice versa. What then, becomes of the Economic 
Harmonies, and of the assumption that the " Laws of 
Trade " only need to be left to their unimpeded operation to 
bring out the best good of the whole industrial community ? 
Is this doctrine, bringing with it such vast consequences, 
true? I answer, there is, in my judgment, a great deal of 
truth in it, otherwise I should not be justified in having 
introduced it at such length; but that it will be finally ac- 
cepted in the form in which Pruf. Cairnes left it, I do not 
believe, though it is not unlikely that his statement, over- 
strained as it is, will compel the attention of economists to 
considerations of real importance heretofore overlooked, 
or avoided on account of their difficulty, more effectually 
even than a more measured statement would have done. 
Certainly after so emphatic an ntterance, by an economist 

iag proportions — or, let us say, whatever be the state of relative prices 
— in different countries, which is requisite to secure this result, those 
exchanging proportions, that state of relative prices, will become 
normal — will furnish the centra] point toward which the fluctuations 
of international prices will gravitate." — "Some Leading Principles, 
etc." pp. 99, 100. 



108 THE M'AQKS QUKSTION. 

80 dis^tiu^'uisluHl, ^vl•ito^^< in oi'onomii's t'lin li;ii>ll_v CKutiniie 
to assiuue ;i jn-i-fiH't tVcodiuii of luoNi'mont (n\ tlio }>:irt 
oi labor, as Uetwoon U>c'alitios ami ocriipations within any 
coimti'v, an assumption as niisi-hiovoiis as it is false. 

Instead of assort in u\ as Pi'ot". (\iirnos has clone, the prae- 
tical isolation of I'ertain i^-reat gnnij^s, with entire treedoni 
of nunenient within thi>se u'l-oups, I heti(>ve that a fuller 
study of industrial soeiety will establish the ei>nviftion 
that nowhere is uiobility }KM'feet, theoretically or i^veu 
praetieally. aiul nowhere is there entire inunobility of 
labor; that all classes and conditions i>f uumi are apprecia- 
bly affected by the force of competition ; but that, on the 
other hand, the force (A' competition, which ni>where be- 
comes nil, even for practical jnirposes, rany-es from a very 
high tt> a very low degree of etliciency, acciM'ding to 
national temperament, acconliug to ]>cculiarities o^ per- 
sonal character and circumstani'e, according to the laws 
and institutions oi the connnunity, and according to natu- 
ral or geographical influences. 

And first, briefly, of the assununl isolation <>f i-ertain 
great groups, as of skilled or unskilled labor. Here Prof. 
Oairnes asserts that not only will adult laborei"?, oni*e 
engaged in unskilled occnj^ations, not go up into skilled 
occupations in any a}^preciable numbers ; but that tho 
transtcr will not take place in the next generation, by tho 
passing o{ the children (>f unskilled laborers into skilleil 
occiipatioiis, to an extent which will practically affect, in 
any appreciable degree, the nnndters o'C the class into 
which or out of which, such children, if any, shall go. 

It cannot be denied that there is a strong constraint, 
made up of both moral and physical forces, whirh keeps 
the vast majority of children not only within the great in- 
dustrial group into wliich they were born, but even Avith- 
in tho very trades which their fathers individually pursue. 
I shall have occasion hereafter to dwell on this as of great 
importance in the philosophy of wages, l^ut that this 



THE MOBLLITT OF LABOR. 199 

constniiiit is so powerful and unremitting that tliose who 
escape are so few as not in any appreciable degree to re- 
lieve the class which they leave or to influence the class 
into which they thus enter, I must doubt. It is not so in 
the United States, in Canada, in Australia. I seriously 
doubt whether it is so in Germany, with its universal pri- 
mary instruction for the young and its admirable system 
of technical education. It surely is not so in Scotland. 

If Prof. Cairnes' generalization remains sound for his 
own country, it is still true that the humblest English 
laboi'er has only to emigrate to the United States, as tens 
of thousands do every year, in order to place his children 
in a situation where they can pass into a higher industrial 
group, not by the display of " extraordinary energy, self- 
denial and enterprise," but by tlie exercise of ordinary 
social and industi-ial virtues. 

On the other hand, how is it witli the assumed free- 
dom of movement within the industrial groups which 
Prof. Cairnes has in view ? Let us recur to his own state- 
ment of the case. He does not claim that laborers who 
have once become engaged in any occupation are practi- 
cally free to leave it for any (jther wliicli may seem more 
remunerative. He admits, perhaps too fully if we have 
regard to the United States, Canada, and Australia, that 
the mass of laborers ai'e held in their place and lot by a 
constraint from which it is ])ractically beyond their power 
to escape. But he does claim that the rising generation 
of laborers furnishes a disposable force — a disposable fund, 
he terms it — vvdiich can be and will be directed freely 
within the great groups he defines, according " as remu- 
neration may tempt, in various dii'ections. The young 
persons composing this body, or others interested in their 
welfare, are eagerly watching the prospects of industry in 
its several branches, and will not be slow to turn towards 
the pursuits that promise the largest rewards."^ 

' Some Liiuduig Princi];les, etc., p. 69. 



aOO Tin: M'AORS QUESTION. 

]S\)\v lot it for the nuinuMit bo i;-i':inttHl that Prof, (^ainics' 
proposition is triio to tlio full ovtoiit, how far does tho 
mobility thus i;ivoii \o labor aiiswor tho rocjuiroinonts of 
tho oaso i lu'forouoo to tabhvs t>f vital statistios will show 
that tho miiiil>or of porsons aniuially arriviui^at tho aii'o of 
twenty is from two ami a half to throe [hh' eeiit of the 
]n>pulatioii twenty years of ai^-o ami npwards. This then is 
tho extent of this 'Viisposahlo fuml." Now in C^hap. IV. 
wo have sonu;ht to sliow how serious often is tho evil elToet 
npiMi those elements o'i oharactor which n^o to make up tho 
i^tru'ioiu'y of labor, ot" tn on a brief tailuro of employment; 
how ahnost eortainly extensive mischief results from 
'• hanl times" protracted throu£!;h months ami years; 
hi)w easily and ipiic-kly harm is done ; how slowly and 
painfully industi-ial charartor is built up ai^ain. In vimv 
of such possibilities o( disaster, always imminent fnnn tho 
very nature of moilern industry, the (piesti(>n becomes one 
of i^rt'at im[>ortance, whether this "disposable fund," 
which Prof. Oairnes adduces, is larg'o enouiih for its 
purpose, M'hethor it secures the needed mobility of labor, 
l^ut before tinaily answeriuij!: this inipiiry, lot us ask 
whether Prof. Oairnes is justilied by the facts in assuming 
that the whole of tho risiui; li'eneratitMi of laborers is thus 
disposable, '' fullilliui;- the same functii^n in relation to the 
ii;onoi-al labor Wnw o( tho country whit-h caj>ital, while 
yet existinii; as purchasini!: power, dischar>i-es in its rela- 
tion to its oeneral capital i " 

Olio would ni>t lii^htly speak in terms of riilii'ulo of any- 
thino; which Pn>f. (\virnes has written ; yet there is some- 
thing ludicrous in the picture which his words suggest of 
a weaver, with hnlf a d(.>/.on children anil fifteen shillings a 
week, earnestly pondering the question, to which of tho 
various trades of the group to which he belongs he shall 
devote the o|KMiing talents of his nine-year-old boy, now 
just able to earn thivo [hmico a day in the mill ; or of pro- 
tracted and froi[uontly adjournod taniily councils in which 



TEE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 201 

poor IJods^c, his wife and eldest dauj^liter, discuss the indus- 
trial capabilities of the younger members of the family, and 
the comparative inducements of the several hundred manual 
occupations recognized in the tables of tlie census. The 
picture is ludicrous only because the truth of the case is so 
pitifully the other way. We know that mill owners arc 
harassed with a])|)lication8 from their hands to take chil- 
dren into employment on almost any terms, and that the 
consciences of employers have required to be rein- 
forced by the sternest prohibitions and jjcruilties of the law 
to save children ten, seven, or four years old, from the 
liorrors of "sweating dens" and crowded factories, since 
the more miserable the parents' condition, the greater 
becomes the pressure on them to crowd their children 
somehow, somewhere, into service; the scantier the re- 
muneration of their i)rcsent em])l()yiru3nt, the less b(!come8 
their ability to secure ])romisiiig openings, or to obtain 
favor from outside for the bettei- disposition of tlieir off- 
spring. Once in the mill, we know how little chance there 
is of the children afterwards taking up for tliemselves an- 
other way of life. 

We know, too, that in the agricultural districts of Eng- 
land, gangs of children of all ages, from sixteen down to 
ten or even five years, have been formed, and driven from 
farm to farm, and from parish to parish, to work all day 
under strange overseers, and to sleep at night in barns 
huddled all together, without distinction of sex. We 
know tliat the system of public gangs re({uired an act of 
parliament ten years ago, to break it up, and we have the 
testimony of the commissioners of 18G7, that, in si)ite of 
the law, it is still continued in some parts of the king- 
dom ; while the system of private gangs,' only less shock- 

' " Even sometimes as many as eighty or one hundred may be taken 
from a neighboring town to one farm." Rciport of E. B. Portman, asst. 
comm'r., — Employment of women and cliildren, 1807-8, p. 1)5. "At 
present, parents solicit employers to take children into service often 



i\W THK WAOKS qvssTJoy, 

inij lo iVMUoiupljUo, is^ still ivntiiwunl without wlntko of 
lj»\v, Smvlv, i^uoli fjiotss as thoso aiv \\o\ ismsisttMii with 
iho assutuplioti that the oouiparativo luorits of a larijo 
»>\uuIh>\' oV oooupaiion!^ ootistitutiny: a "" ivinpotitii»' jjjN»up " 
are oaivfuUv atu\ intelliiyenllv cauvajisiHl h\ paivnts, juix- 
ions tor tho hiijhost ultimato ij\>ovi of thoir otf?ipriuii\ anii 
wUliuij; atul ahlo to lako ailvataaii>> of opportunitiosatKu'tUHl 
iti hranolu-^ of imltistrv s^Uattijo t\> ihotn atul porhajv^ pj\>s- 
wuteil at a ilisitaiuw 80 lato as 1870, childtvn wot^ 
eniploYtHi in the briekvatxlj^of Kuiilaiul, under sjitnuii^vtajik' 
masters, at lh»\H^ at\vl a half veai*?* of aii"t\* Aeeottnt is 
ijiven US, siokeiunij iti its \letails, of a bov weiiihini» 
tiftv-two jviutuls, earrvinij o)\ Ins lu\ul a load of elav 
weijilunj^ fort\-thi\H> pound*, seven miles a dawaml walk- 
iuij another seven to the plaee whet\> his hnnlen w as to 
l>e assun\ed. Perl»aj\s his tnother was t\^i»vrlv "watehinj* 
tl>e pt\\!ijHvts of industry it\ its seveml hnujohes," w ith a 
view to seUvtiuij a thoJV>uv»hly a^irtvahle, ivniunerjuive, 
atid at the s^^me time impiwitijf OiVU|V{»tion, w1um>? ho 
i\uild at ot»oe earn a handsonie livini* and seeutv opjxu^ 
tunitleji for the l>arnu>nious development of his physieal, 
iuteUeetual and spiritual faoulties, hut I sean^elv think it, 
John Alliuxsworth tells Mr, White, Asst. Oonunissioner, 
how he at\d his sou, a^^ni nine yeai^ earn their daily 
ht\\»d. *• Work i« the furnaee, ]*«ist Saturday morninjy 
we l>egan at two. We had slept in the furnaiH>, heiuj;^ 
stnu\^xM^> to the town. We live at Wadsley, four or tivo 
miles ^^l". We have to be hero by six .v. m. Ji is a loujy 
way for the Ih\v to oi>nH> and j»t^ Ivu'k t\aeh day, though I 
ean n>anajiv it, I should like to get some plaee iu the town 
fvu^ luui to stay in,'*^ ^vow Mf'iv is a father wl^o ♦»< KH^king 

ao Yo«»$ *s to h* worihtess." — It>i*t, j\ 1>7. *' la C»»utMfUtjjt>j>l»irte', th» 
ehlKtn^n go out lo work ** yowng *s *ix y<^*r» txl^i, iu»nY Mt ;*t*vt*» \>r 
eiyht,"— tWvJ< }\ i\V ot )^\v l^.lA.nojt?, 

* Ktfiv^rt of tSttt. p, lit 



THE MOBILITY OF LAIiOR. 2()'i 

out for liis soil, 'dcj-ord'ut'/ to Prof. Cairnes' assumption ; 
3'et Mr. Cr^mrnis.-j'onor Wliito would pi'obably, from liis 
lari^e experience, ^ive lieavy odds tliat John Aliinswortli's 
little son, aged nine, will be found twenty years from this, 
if still alive, working in the furnace, perhaps sleeping in it, 
stunted and blighted, the father of a nine-years-old boy, 
for whom he too, "would like" to get a better place to 
woi'k and sleep. 

J have not called up such pictures of human misery with 
the object of exciting compassion, much less with a view to 
obtain an advantage in controversy, but to show graphically 
the eiTor of Prof. Cairnes' assumption that parents who are 
tied down hopelessly to an occupation which affords but 
the barest subsistence can freely dispose of their children 
to the best advantage among a large class of occupations. 
Especially when we consider that, in the development of 
modern industry, trades become highly localized, entire 
towns and cities being given up to a single branch of 
manufacture, shall we see the practical fallacy of this 
assum]>tion. Even if we supy^ose the parent to be advised 
of better opportunities for employment opening in some 
trade prosecuted at a distance, and to be pecuniarily able 
to send his child thither and secure him a position, yet, 
years before the boy or girl would be fit to send away from 
home, the chance of earning a few pence in the mill where 
the parent works would almost irresistibly have drawn the 
child into the vortex. 

May we not then question Prof. Cairnes' assumption that 
the children of the working classes constitute "a disposa- 
ble fund " to be distributed to the highest advantage of 
labor among those occupations which at the time are most 
remunerative 'i The truth is, that until you secure raohility 
to adult labor you will fail to find it in the rising genera- 
tion, and that among an ignorant and degraded population 
four-fifths, perhaps nine-tenths, of all children, by what 
may be called a moral necessity, follow the occupations of 



204 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

their parents, or those with whom their fortune has placed 
them. The great exception is that which Prof. Fawcett 
has indicated/ that of the children of agricultnral laborers 
in the immediate vicinity of flourishing manufiictories. 

We have now reached a position where we can judge of 
the adequacy of the force which Prof. Cairnes invokes to 
secure to labor its needed mobility, and we must pronounce 
it wholly insufficient. Even were the whole mass of 
labor coming each year into market to be reckoned as 
"disposable" in the sense in which he uses the term, it 
would 3'et sometimes fall short of effecting that redistribu- 
tion which is required by changes which, as "we have seen 
not infrequently amount in a few years almost to a revo- 
lution of industry ; but when we consider how partial and 
doubtful is the mobility thus claimed for the rising gen- 
eration of laborers, we are constrained to say that nnless 
more can be adduced than Prof. Cairnes has shown, 
the freedom of movement within industrial groups which 
he has claimed to be practically perfect, is in truth very 
inadequate to effect that object of supreme importance to 
labor — the free and quick resort to the best market. 

But it may be asked, is not the ubiquity of the " tramp " 
a proof that you have over-estimated the difficulty which 
besets the movement of labor ? Is there not a large adult 
population which is constantly shifting its place, here to- 
day and there to-morrow ? What more could you ask ? 

I answer, there is no more virtue to relieve the pres- 
sure upon honest self-respecting labor in the forces which 
direct the movement of the " tramp," than there is of vir- 
tue to save men from drowning in the forces wdiich bring 
a human body to the surface after a certain period of putre- 
faction. The body comes up, indeed, but only when 

' "An agricultural laborer is not suddenly converted into a cotton 
weaver. Such a transition rarely takes place ; but if there is a manu- 
factory close at hand many of the children of the agricultural laborers 
will be employed therein." — Pol. Econ., p. 170. 



TEE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 205 

swollen and discolored by the processes of corruption ; 
and so the laborer, who has lost his hopefulness and self- 
respect and become industrially degraded, wiiether by 
bad habits for which he is primarily in fault, or by the 
force of causes he had no strength to resist, wanders about 
the country begging his food and stealing his lodgings as 
he can ; but his freedom, thus obtained by being loosed 
from all ties to social and domestic life, does not so much 
relieve labor as it curses the whole community, rich and 
poor alike. 



riivrrKK Ml. 



IIIK Wvr.KS Cl..\!^S. 



Ir hrtii boon s^iivl that, bv mos^t svsitoniatio wrltors on 
political ooonoiuy, tho \vaiiV!> olassji is takon aj^ ivitu'idont 
with tho labor class. In tho opoivinu" i-haptor T briotly 
indio.-Uod tivo important olassos thus broug-ht toirothor 
luuiora sinijK* titlo. In tho prosont ohaptor it is propv>sovl 
tv^ show that of tho tivo, but two oan with any pro}unoty 
bo said to ivooivo \vai::os; and of thoso two. it is proposed, 
thoujih not with tho s;\t\io dogivo of assurance, to oxohulo 
one, leaving; but a sinijle class as ivally the ivcipient t»f 
waiivs. It is hopovl that, by strictly dotininu: the wairos 
class, and setting tho other classes thus distinirnishod in 
their true ivlatious to it. souiothing may be added to tho 
understand iuiT of the law of wauvs. 

To be>rin : The waiji^s class includes ojily the emj^of/eth 
It is not uecess,ary to spend time in pivvinir that by 
etymology, at once, ami popular us;\go. tho word is rc^ 
stricti\l to the jvn\nnoration paivl by otio poi'son to another. 
Those who give tho \voi\i a wid.er signiticance in political 
economy are bouml to justify themselves in doing so. by 
showing that something is g^iinevl, in clearness, theivby. 
But my reason for desiring to eontine the woril as has 
Kvn pivposeil, in a ti-eatise on wagt^s, is better than a 
linguistic one. It is that tho very object of the inquiry is 
to .ascertain Mr htw<t trhn'h j/txv/vi Mr* ctituh'tt'on of Mo^v 
jiH';>\>w<f trhtK harin^ no i\imtmm<f of M<* otjt'tHue^ an<i in- 
^trumi^ntalifit?^ tif j>tvif action^ ar^ «>W/^if to ««yZ' emjifo^ 



TIIK WAGMH (JLAhiH. 207 

merit and the means of H'nhninten/;e at the hands of oUw/rn. 
It is tin; foiulition of this cImhb tluit the ])liilantlii-oj)i8t is 
(;sfK!(;i!ill_v inlorostcd in, l;(;f;auKO tliiH JH pivicWriiiKjiitiy tlio 
(J('|)Mi'l(.'nt cIhrb. The economist shoiihl be equally inter- 
esled hef^aii.se jiiBt here coiries tlie real Btrairi in the distri- 
hiition ol" the products of industry. How, for example, 
if we ^rou[) employer and employed in one great " wages'* 
elasK, can we [)rr>pcr]y reach tlie subjects of strikes and 
ti'ad(!S unions? Ai'o we not, most unnecessarily and in 
most undeserved contempl, of [)0])iilar spe(;ch, Kliii-j-ing over 
and (;bliteniting the natural and obvious distinction which 
])ointH us the; way to the right disr^ussion of some of the 
iriost ijriporiant questions of distribution, wlien we speak 
of the wages of a cotton maniiraflurci- ; wages stipulated 
by no one, due fi'om no one, and, il" paid at all, y)aid by 
the accidental consumer of the product? 

if employers do not Ixjhuig in the wages class, no more 
do those who are neither enij>loyei's nc))- employed ; who 
having command of the agencies and instruinentalities of 
pi'0(biC;lion Hiidicicnt b>r th(;ii' own laboi", tak(,' a most im- 
portant pai't, indeed, in the ]>roduction of wealth ; but, own- 
ing th(5 entin; prodnci, have no concei-n whatever with the 
distribution of wealth, and hence rH^thiiig to do with wages. 

We thus exclude the whole body of peasant proprietors, 
who in many countries constitute the bulk of the po])ula- 
tion, and are, taking the whole world together, undoul^t- 
edly moi'c mirrujrouB than an_y other single class which we 
shall have occasion to characterize. These persons, culti- 
vating their own land with their own labor only, or per- 
ha])S with that of thcjir wives and mifior children (having 
no separate rights or interests recognizied by the law of the 
land, and hence caj)able of making no demand, as laljorers, 
for any portion of the product), create in the aggregate a 
vast amount of wealth, but it is wealth not distributed. 
Eacii such peasant proprietor owns the entire product of 
his land (subject only to the claims of the government for 



208 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

contribution, which claims, being legal and not eeonomieal 
in their nature, cannot be recognized in an economical 
treatise), to be consumed for the subsistence of himself 
and family and the increase of his own stock, or to be 
exchanged at his pleasure for the products of others. 
Such wealth, therefore, is not subject to distribution, and 
hence we clearly must exclude this body of laborers from 
the wages class. 

In England the peasant proprietor does not exist. 
Forty years ago Prof. Jones' wrote " In parts of England 
and Wales, though the race is fast vanishing, there may 
V be seen specimens of our first division of laborers, unhired 
by any one, occupiers of the soil, tilling it with their own 
hands." ' 

The "specimens" have by this time all disappeared 
except possibly from Westmoreland and Cumberland, coun- 
ties characterized by comparatively small estates. But 
while the condition of large landed properties, cultivated 
by hired agricultural laborers, is almost universal in Eng- 
land and Scotland, one cannot cross the narrow seas in 
any direction without coming upon a condition very 
different.' To the west, Ireland furnishes an example of 
which we shall speak in connection with another class of 
producers ; while, before one reaches the coast of France, 
he finds in the " Channel Islands," a part of the British 
empire but retaining their own laws regulating the descent 
of landed property, a body of peasant proprietors who 
have furnished the advocates of that system of cultivation 
with some of their most valued illustrations. In France 

' " Whose Essay on the distribution of Wealth (or rather Rent) is a 
copious repertory of valuable facts on the landed tenure of different 
countries."— J. S. Mill, Pol. Econ., I. 297. 

« Pol. Econ., p. 15. 

^ " You have no other peasantry like that of England. You have no 
other country in which it 's entirely divorced from the land. There is 
no other country in the v/orld where you will not find men turning 
up the furrow in their own freehold." — Cobden, Speeches, II, 116. 



THE WAGE 8 CLASS. 209 

the principle of " partible succession," introduced by the 
Revolution, has created a vast number of small properties, 
estimated at between four and five and a half millions. 

" In Germany a revolution of the same nature, though 
not of the same magnitude, has been effected in a more 
regular manner. The benefits of landed property have 
been imparted progressively to a numerous and prosperous 
class of cultivators b}'' the abolition of feudal superiorities, 
by the restriction of entails and special destination of 
property, by the deliberate division of estates between the 
landlord and the occupier, on a basis, if not always equitable 
to the former, at least patriotic in its motives and happy in 
its results, and by the operation of rules of succession re- 
producing in some instances and in others adopting with 
various raodiiications, the maxims of the French Code.* " 

In Italj', under the principle of partible succession, 
somewhat modified, and through sale of church lands and 
the dismemberment of feudal estates subject to commu- 
nal rights ; and in Russia, through the emancipation of 
the serfs and their investiture with portions of the estates 
to which they formerly belonged, we have a large and 
increasing portion of the soil cultivated by its owners, 
working for themselves and by themselves, receiving the 
whole produce of the soil, subject only to deduction 
through taxation. 



But it is not only the peasant proprietor of Europe, the 
" farmer " of America, M^ho must be excluded from the 
wages class on the ground that he is not dependent on 
another for employment. In the same class economically, 
so far as the principles of distribution are concerned, are 
large bodies of mechanical laborers, artisans, who having 
possession of the agencies and instrumentalities of pro- 

* Address of Lord Napier and Ettrick. Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1873. 



210 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

dnction, are enabled to produce wealth by their own 
labor, without the consent of any person, the product 
being all their own and hence not subject to distribution, 
though presumably in great part exchanged for the pro- 
ducts, especially the agricultural products, of others. 
These persons, again, receive no wages, are not hired. 
They are no more the employed than they are the em- 
ployers ; indeed they are neither. Distribution has 
nothing to do with them. 

Adam Smith recognized this class. "It sometimes 
happens," he says, " that a single independent workman 
has stock enough both to purchase the materials of his 
work and to maintain himself till it be completed. He is 
both master and workman, and enjoys the whole produce 
of his labor.* 

I do not, for the present, say that the condition of this 
class is better or worse than that of the wages class, but 
only that the two classes stand in different economical 
relations, and should be treated separately. The self-em- 
ployed laborer has still to seek his market, and if the mar- 
ket fail him he may suffer or starve like the wage laborer ; 
but it is a market for his product that he seeks, not for his 
labor ; and in the pregnant fact that he has possession of 
the agencies and instrumentalities of production, and may 
work in his place witliout the leave or help of any, is 
found an abundant reason for preserving the distinction 
expressed above. 

Closely allied to the peasant proprietor in many respec^.s 
economically, though differing widely in others, and not 
the less distinctly to be excluded from the wages class, are 
those tenants, whether known as ryots in Asia or meta- 
yers in Europe, who have, whether by law or by impera- 
tive custom, a, recognized right to the cultivation of soil 
which they do not own, upon the payment of a fixed share 

> Wealth of Nations, I. 69. 



THE WAGES CLASS. 211 

of the produce. The wealth thus produced is, indeed, un- 
like that produced by the classes previously described, 
subject to distribution, inasmuch as the owner of the soil 
is here entitled to participate in the results of the industry ; 
but the tenant's share is still in no sense wages. He is not 
of the employed class ; he is not dependent on the will 
of another for the opportunity to labor ; he has a right to 
work on that particular body of land and to enjoy the 
fruits of his labor, subject only to the due payment of the 
share of the product going to the landlord — be the same 
an individual or the state. And this is equally true whether 
the right of the tenant to remain in occupancy is one fixed 
by law, or only by a custom which is so distinct and im- 
perative as to give a practical assurance of permanency. 
And it is equally true whether the amount of rent be fixed 
by law, or by a custom which the owner so far respects as 
to put it out of his disposition to undertake to raise it.^ 

The metayer system, under which' the landowner re- 
ceives a definite share of the produce, originally one-half, 
as the term implies, but varying in present usage from 
one-half to two-thirds, according to local law or custom, 
once prevailed throughout the western division of Conti- 
nental Europe, Italy, France, and Spain.^ In France, 

> " In Tuscany," writes Sismondi, and the remark holds true of 
most parts of Italy where the metayer system prevails, "public 
opinion protects the cultivator. A proprietor would not dare to im- 
pose conditions unusual in the country, and even in changing one 
metayer for another he alters nothing of the rent." 

" In this country (England) the cultivator of the soil and the owner 
of the soil are, as a rule, different persons ; in other countries they are, 
as a rule, the same ; or where they are not the same the owner of the 
soil rather occupies the position of a perpetuallessor or mortgagee than 
that of a landlord whose contracts with his tenants are constantly lia- 
ble to revision." — Prof. Rogers' Pol. Econ., p. 151. 

^ Prof. Jones finds the origin of the metayer system of Western 
Europe, in Greece, from which it was adopted by the Romans, and in- 
troduced into Italy first, and France and Spain afterwards. Prof. 
Rogers finds that the metayer system was introduced quite generally 



212 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

since the Revolution, it has been largely superseded by 
peasant proprietorship ; and in Italy, since the unification 
of the kingdom, the same process has been going on, 
though more slowly. A large portion of the soil of these 
three countries is, however, still cultivated under this 
tenure. 

The ryot system of Asia and Turkey in Europe is held 
by some economists to be substantially equivalent to per- 
sonal proprietorship; by others to be the Oriental equiva- 
lent of the metayer system, the taxes, varying from fifty 
upwards to perhaps seventy per cent., which the govern- 
ment levies on the produce, being regarded as virtually the 
rent of the land. The question need not be discussed 
here, for it is evident that, whichever way it might be 
decided, the ryot is not a wage laborer. 

In a very diflferent economical position is the cottar ten- 
ant, who is liable, on the expiry of his longer or shorter 
lease, or at the will of the landlord in the absence of a 
lease, to have his rent raised ; and on his inability to re- 
sist or to satisfy sucli a demand, or even from the personal 
prejudices or [)references of the landlord, to be ejected 
from liis occupancy ; yet we cannot designate his share 
of the product of the soil, after deducting rent, by the 
term wages. The condition of the cottar may be better 
than that of the wage laborer, or it may easily be worse ; 
but worse or better, it is certainly different, and results 
from wholly different economical relations. As we go 
forward the unfitness of such a designation, if, indeed, 
there should be any question concerning it, will be made 
to appear more clearly than could be done at present M'ith- 

into England after the great plague of 1848, and prevailed for about 
sixty years, when it was " superseded by the growth of a hardy and 
prosperous yeomanry, who either purchased the land in parcels, or 
bargained to work it with their own capital, and at a money rent." 
Pol. Econ., 168, 170. The fate of these yeomen in England has been 
noticed. 



THE WAGES CLASS. 213 

out an extensive excursion from the path of our discus- 
sion ; but it will perhaps be sufficient at this point, waiv- 
ing objections from etymology and popular use, to say that 
it is of tlie essence of wages that they are at stipulated 
rates, and therefore certain in amount, while the produce 
of the cottar tenant is never certain, since nature deehnes 
to make any stipulation, and the quantity and quality of 
the crop must always remain, up to the moment of har- 
vesting, a matter of conjecture. 

The cottar tenancy is still very general in Ireland. 
The soil is held in small quantities/ by the great body of 
the agricultural laboring population." 



We have thus far insisted tliat only the employed 
shall be included in the wages class. Applying this test 
of dependence on others for the opportunity to labor, we 
have successively excluded several large bodies of laborers, 
constituting in the aggregate the vast majority^ of the hu- 
man race. In respect to the production of most of these,- 
the principles of distribution do not apply. In contem- 
plating their condition and prospects, we have only to 
consider the law of production taken in connection with 
the law of population. Masters of their own fate, econom- 
ically, whether they shall be happy or miserable will 
depend [assuming their own industry, frugality and sobri- 
ety], lirst, upon their habits in respect to procreation ; 



1 Of the 682,237 holdings in Ireland, 513,080 are of less value than 
15^. a year each, 527,000 are tenancies at will. — Statistical Journal, 
xxxiii, 152. 

'^ Day-laborers in agriculture were, until recently, almost unknown 
in Ireland. Tliey are now appearing in considerable numbers. — Les- 
lie's Land Systems, etc. p. 44. 

* " The unliired laborers who are peasant cultivators," according 
to Prof. Jones, comprised in his day "probably two-thirds of the la- 
boring population of the globe." — Pol. Econ., p. 14. 



314 THE WAGES QUESTION: 

second, upon tlie acts of their government, protecting tliem 
or robbing them, as the case may be, with which poHtical 
economy has nothing to do ; and third, on the kindness 
or nnkindness of nature in affording sun and shower in 
due order and proportion, and with this, again, political 
economy has nothing to do. 

We have applied the test of employment. We must 
now apply other tests, still further to reduce the range of 
our investigation. 

First, we count out all those who, though em- 
ployed, are employed on shares. It is, as has been said, of 
the essence of wages, that they are stipulated in amount. 
In the case of laborers working on shares, no definite 
amount is stipulated ; but only the proportion of an uncer- 
tain product which shall go to the laborer. His remunera 
tion, therefore, becomes greater with good luck and favor- 
able weather, or smaller with the reverse. He shares with 
the employer the risk of bad seasons and accidental loss; 
and is entitled to participate in all the advantage of every 
fortunate venture. In other words, he is the partner of 
his employer, dependent indeed, with no voice in tlie man- 
agement, and perhaps on hard terms, but a partner still 
in the distribution of the product; a condition which is 
strongly contrasted with that of the wage-laborers proper, 
who have their remuneration at fixed rates, receiving no 
less if the business be unsuccessful (except in the rare and 
not anticipated event of bankruptcy) ; and receiving no 
more, however great the returns of the industry. 

The class of hired laborers "working on shares is not 
large, but it is desirable that it should be clearly separated 
and excluded from the wage class for scientific precision. 
The share principle is applied somewhat extensively in 
mining, but its chief application is on the sea, where it 
becomes of great importance to interest all hands in the 
success of the enterprise. In fishing vessels and whalers 
of almost all nationalities, and with the Greeks even in 



THE WAGES CLASS. 315 

the general merchant service, the crews take shares in the 
venture. 

Secondly, it is m}' view that another and a very large 
body of laborers should be excluded from the wages class 
in treating the questions of distribution, though the term 
wages is applied, and with entire propriety, to the remu- 
neration of this class of persons, and its exclusion may 
not meet the general assent which I trust will be accorded 
to the exclusions previously effected. 

What, then, is the class thus to be excluded against 
common usage ? It includes those persons -who are defined 
by Prof. Jones ^ as paid, or supported, out of the revenues 
of their employers. I deem the difference between this 
class, which it is proposed throughout the further course 
of this work to call the salary or stipend class, and that 
wbich I shall call the wages class, to be not only sufficiently 
clear to justify the economist in giving to the former a 
distinctive name, but so important in its bearings on the 
relation of persons of that class to their employers, and on 
their claim to a share of distributed wealth, as to render it 
imperative to treat them separately. 

The domestic servant affords, perhaps, the best illustra- 
tion, for present purposes, of the salary or stipend class. 
He is not employed as a means to his masters profit. His 
master's income is not due in any part to his employment ; 
on the conti'ary, that income is first acquired, or its acqui- 
sition reasonably assured ; and in the amount of the in- 
come is determined whether the servant shall be employed 
or not, while to the full extent of that employment the 
income is diminished. As Adam Smith expresses it, "a 
man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufac- 
turers ; he grows poor by maintaining a multitude of 
menial servants.'' ^ 



> Pol. Econ., p. 420. 

» Wealth of Nations, I, 332. 



21G THE WAGES QUESTION. 

The case of the wage laborer is different. He is em- 
ployed with a view to his master's profit ; the masters 
income is the result of such employment of labor ; and, 
with the exercise of due judgment, that income will be 
greater by reason of the employment, within the limits of 
his productive capacity, of eacii additional man. " Though 
the manufacturer has his wages advanced to him by his 
master, he in reality costs him no expense, the whole 
value of those wages being generally restored, together 
with a profit, in the improved value of the subject upon 
which his labor is bestowed. But the maintenance of a 
menial servant is never restored." ^ 

The expectation of profits, be it observed, furnishes the 
test for discriminating the wages class from the stipend or 
salary class. It is not necessary that the profit expected 
in the employment of persons of the former class should 
always be realized ; naj', in a given case, actual loss may 
result without changing the character of the service. .But 
unless the reason for the employment is found in the ex- 
pectation of a profit to the employer out of the production 
in which the laborer is to be engaged, we do not find in 
such employment the true sign of the wages class. Hence 
we may broadly say, No profits, no wages. 



Let us recapitulate. We have, first, excluded the em- 
ploying class; second, all who, having possession of the 
agencies and instrumentalities of production, whether 
agricultural or mechanical, are not dependent on others 
for the opportunity to prodttce ; third, those who, though 
not owning land, lease it, whether under the protection of 
law or subject to all the hardships of competition. These 
successive exclusions leave us the employed class, whether 
in asrriculture or manufactures. From this we further ex- 

' Wealth of Nations. 



1 



THE WAGES CLASS. 217 

elude all who produce on shares, and all who are paid or 
subsisted out of the revenues of tlieir employers. We 
have left the wages class proper, including- all persons who 
afe employed in production with a view to the profit of 
their employers, and are paid at stipulated rates. This is 
the class whose economical position and interests it is pro- 
posed here to discuss. With such limitations as have been 
imposed, the wages cpiestion is not of that wide interest 
which is given to it when pretty much the whole human 
race is brought within its scope ; but it may be that by this 
limitation our inquiries will become more fruitful, i 

But though the wage class includes but a fraction of 
humanity, it is perhaps as large as can be comfortably 
treated in a work of a single volume. Of the eighty mil- 
lions of English-speaking people, three-fourths probabl.y, 
two-thirds certainly, subsist on wages. 

It may be well here to anticipate a hostile criticism. It 
may be said that we have made our analysis of the laboi- 
ing population an essential part of our theory of wages, 
while yet, in fact, no inconsiderable nnmber of persons 
sustain economical relations which refuse to submit to such 
a classification. Thus there are persons belonging alter- 
nately to the wages and to the stipend class, now employed 
for profit, now paid out of revenue. In like manner there 
are persons in every community who are employed as 
hired laborers during portions of the year, while at other 
seasons they are engaged in production on their own ac- 
count in their own shops or on their own small holdings 
of land. 

To this it may be replied that while the recognition of 

1 " Tlie (third) class of hired laborers, paid from capital, has so ex- 
clusively met the eyes and occupied the thoughts of English writers 
on wages, that it has led them into some serious and very unfor- 
. tunate mistakes as to the nature, extent, and formation of the funds 
out of which the laboring population of the globe is fed, and, as usual, 
they have misled foreign writers." — R, Jones, Pol. Econ., p. 15. 



218 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

vast bodies of undistributed wealth which are jet subject 
to exchange, is here asserted to be necessary to a right 
understanding of some of the phenomena of wages, the 
validity of this position does not depend on the possibility 
of an exact enumeration of the several classes defined. 
On this point I cannot do better than quote from the 
admirable chapter on Economic Definition, which Prof. 
Cairues, just before his lamented death, added to his treat- 
ise on the Logical Method of Political Economy. 

" In controversies about definitions, nothing is more 
common than to meet objections founded on the assump- 
tion that the attribute on which a definition turns, ought to 
be one which does not admit of deij'rees. This beino' 
assumed, the objector goes on to show that the facts or 
objects placed within the boundary line of some definilion 
to which objection is taken, cannot, in their extreme 
instances be clearly discriminated from those which lie 
without. Some equivocal example is then taken, and the 
framer of the definition is challenged to say in which 
category it is to be placed. Xow it seems to me that an 
objection of this kind ignores the inevitable conditions 
under which a scientific nomenclature is constructed, alike 
in political economy and in all the positive sciences. In 
such sciences, nomenclature, and therefore definition, is 
based on classification, and to admit of degrees is the char- 
acter of all natural facts. As has been said, there are no hard 
lines in nature. Between the animal and vegetable king- 
doms, for example, where is the line to bo drawn ? . . . 
It is, therefore, no valid objection to a classification, nor 
consequently, to the definition founded upon it, tliat 
instances may be found which fall, or seem to fall, on our 
lines of demarcation. This is inevitable in the nature of 
things. But this notwithstanding, the classification, and 
therefore the definition, is a good one, if, in those instances 
which do not fall on the line, the distinetlons marked hy 
the definition are such as it is important to marh, sash 



THE WAGES CLASS. 319 

that the recognition of them will help the inquirer for- 
ward toward the desiderated goal." ^ 

THE EXCHANGE OF DISTRIBUTED FOR UNDISTRIBUTED" 
WEALTH. 

But it may be asked, what avails it to show that the 
wages classes, instead of being co-extensive with the labor 
class, as is assnrned in the current theories respecting 
wages, is only a small fraction of it, communicating with 
those other great masses of labor, only in the exchange of 
its completed and marketed products ? How can this fact 
bear on the question, whether wages may be increased 
actually and permanently? Are not wages governed by 
exactly the same principles as if the wages class constituted 
the whole of the labor class, instead of one-tifth, one-sixth, 
or one-seventh ? 

I answer, in the iirst place, that if the wages class is 
only a fraction of the labor class, that fact should be clearly 
set forth in discussions of the wages question, and the 
extent of the interests involved should be, as nearly as 
possible, indicated. The reader has a right to know 
whether the principles laid down govern the fortunes of 
substantially the whole human race, or of only one-iifth or 
one-seventh of it. The confusion of the labor question 
with the wages question, is as unnecessary as it is unscien- 
tific. 

But secondly, I answer that the fact of the production 
of a vast body of undistributed wealth, portions of which 
are subject to exchange with distributed wealth, may, and 
does, powerfully affect the condition of the wages class. 

Let us discriminate. So far as undistributed wealth, 
that is, w^ealth which is produced entire by one person,^ 

» Log. Metli. Pol. Econ. p. 139-141. 
» p. 4. 

' With tbe assistance, it may be, of his wife and minor children, 
whose labor is, in the eye of the law, his own. 



220 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

who owns the whole product, is not exchanged but is con- 
sumed by the producer, as is the case with probably the 
major part of such wealth, the world over, no effect on the 
wages dass can be wrought thereby. That wealth, being 
neither distributed nor exchanged, neither its production 
nor its consumption concerns other classes of prodncers. 
But so far as nndistributed wealth is exchanged against 
distributed wealth, there is a distinct possibility, therein, 
of gain or loss to the wages class. 

It was remarked in our first chapter, that it is as truly 
impossible to explain all the phenomena of wages, with- 
out reference to this outside body of nndistributed wealth, 
as it would be to account for the Gulf Stream, withont 
reference to the colder waters between which, and over 
which, it flows. AVe are now in a position to justify this 
remark. We have seen (^hap. x,) that the theory tliat all 
burdens are divided and all benefits dilfused equally 
throughout industrial society, rests on the assumption of 
perfect competition. Industrial society is taken, for the 
purposes of this reasoning, as composed of economical atoms, 
absolutely equivalent, possessing complete mobility and 
elasticity. Given this condition, all that Eastiat has 
claimed for the economical harmonies, is happily true. 
The laborer and the employer feel the force of competition 
eqnally, and neitlier has a natural advantage over the other. 
The laborer feels the force of competition alike as seller of 
labor and as bnyer of commodities. Labor and capital 
flow freely to their best market. The highest price which 
any emploj'er can afford to give will be the lowest which 
any laborer w^ill consent to receive; while, as between any 
two departments of production, the advantages enjoyed by 
the laborers, capitalists and employees engaged will be 
absolutely equalized. 

But, on the other hand, it is evident that the least vis- 
cositi/ qf material, the slightest idiosyjicrasy of structure 
must, in a degree, defer, if not enih'ely defeat, the tend- 



THE WAGES CLASS. 231 

ency to the •propagation^ thi'ongh economic media, of any 
economic impulse. JiLst so far as men differ in their 
industrial quality, or are diversely organized in natural 
or artificial groups, just so far there is the possibility that 
one person or class of persons may he disproportionately 
affected by an economic force ; may receive more or receive 
less of the benefit, may suffer less or suffer more of the 
burden, than his just distributive share. 

Now the division of the body of laborers into the 
employed and the non-employed, or independent work- 
men, is a great structural fact which cannot but profoundly 
influence the propagation of economic impulses. Doubt- 
less there are compensations in the condition of the wages 
class; while nothing could exceed the misei-y of whole 
nations of peasant proprietors or tenant occupiers, where 
the government fails to render the protection to which the 
subject is entitled, or where, as too often happens, the 
government becomes the plunderer of the people. Yet, 
through all, we discern in the fact that the wages class are 
dependent on others for the opportunity and the means to 
labor, not having, in their own right, possession of the 
agencies and instrumentalities of production, the possibil- 
ity of deep and lasting detriment. 

I have already expressed the opinion, in criticism of 
Prof. Cairnes' doctrine of non-competing groups, that com- 
petition never becomes nil, for practical purposes. But let 
us for the moment inquire what would be the effects, did 
the employed and the non-emplo^^ed constitute two great 
non-competing groups ; that is, did not the employed ever 
become an independent workman ; or the independent 
workman ever seek employment. We will also suppose 
competition to be perfect within the employed class. 

It is evident that upon these assumptions any economi- 
cal impulse, for good or for evil, which should be experi- 
enced anywhere in the latter class, M'ould extend at once 
and without loss through the whole body of the employed, 



338 Tin: WAGES QUKSTWy. 

that {ho luniliMi wtMiKl ln> divided or tho benotit ditVusod 
nmoHii; tho iniiii> muss, action and reaction continning un- 
til iHiuililuiuin was ovorywhcro resti>ri>d. r>nt this im- 
pulse would not he propa<2:ated across the. dividing]: lino 
between the employed and the non-emj)loyed. The econo- 
nucal mo\ emiMtt would ceasi> in this direction as abruptly' 
as a vein of gold stops at n new geologic formation. For 
good or for evil, the non-emploved would feel no econo- 
mical symjKithy with the employed. Kach group would 
meet its own fate, iiulividually, by itself. Certain "ex- 
changing proportions " would bo established for the sur- 
plus products of the two groups; a scale of relative prices 
would be reached by trade between them ; but so long as 
labor was tmt free to tlow across the line of demarcation 
there wt>idd not be even a tendency to the ecpialization of 
the wages of the employed to the average production of 
the independent workman. 

Now, as has been said, there is no such utter failure of 
eonipetition as is here assumed for the purposes of illustra- 
tion. Tho employed do come, in greater or loss degree, to 
be independent workmen : independent workmen do 
oomo under empU>yment. The facility with which these 
intert'hanges are made depends much upon the nature of 
special industries, much upon the character of the individ- 
ual workman, much upon the state of legislatioti and the 
social condition of the ciumtry. Tn some lauds the move- 
ment across the lino dividing the employed and the non- 
employed is very free, many laborers alternating between 
their own little farms or shops, where they work for them- 
selves by themselves, reoeiving all advantages and suffer- 
ing all losses, and tho larger estates or factories where they 
come under direction and control, and receive wages at 
stipulated rates. In other lands the transition is slow and 
iiaitiful ; in some it can scarcely be said to be etiectod at 
all. ^ On the whole, it is notorious that interchanges be- 

' " >"o Englisli ag^ricultural laborer, in his most sanguine dreams. 



THE WAOim CLASS. 233 

twecn tlic two groups are comparatively rare; tlic great 
mass of the employed never have the choice v^'hether they 
will set up for themselves; they abide in their lot and 
share, because they have no resource, the fortune of their 
class, be that good or evil. The division we have indi- 
cated remains incontestibly the greatest structural fact in 
modern industrial society, telling powerfully upon the 
rate and direction in which economic impulses shall be 
propagated. 

If this be so, and I do not look to see it questioned by 
any one, then there clearly is the possibility that one of 
these groups may profit at the expense of the other, since 
the only security which could exist for their sharing 
equally the benefits and burdens of production would be 
found in the unimpeded intercliange of labor. Which of 
the two is more likely to be the gainer in the exchange of 
its marketed products, whether it be the independent work- 
man who has possession of the means and materials of 
production, who can create wealth in his own name and 
right, and has to ask no man's leave to labor, or the era- 
ployed workman, will more clearly appear the further we 
carry our discussion of the conditions of the wages class in 
modern industrial society. 

has the vision of occupying, still less of possessing, land." — Rogers' 
Hist, of Agr. and Prices, I, 693. 



CHAPTER XIIT. 

THE CAPITALIST CLASS : RETURNS OF CAPITAL : RENT AND 
INTEREST. 

Of capital it is not necessary to discuss here either the 
ori<;in or the office. Man}' economists carefully exclude 
land from the lists of capital. What Ricardo calls " the 
original and indestructible^ powers of the soil," not being 
the creation of labor, and commanding, as they do, for 
their possessor, an annual remuneration, over and above 
the proper returns of labor (as determined by the yield of 
the poorest soils under cultivation), are, these writers hold, 
not in the nature of capital. 

But whatever be the economical nature or the social 
justification of rent, the facts that land almost everywhere 
bears its price proportioned to this annual income ; that a 
great part of all the land in possession to-day in civilized 
countries was actuall}' acquired by purchase, through the 
payment of undoubted capital ; that this interchange of 
fixed and circulating capital is constantly taking place, land 
always practically having its price in denominations of 
capital, capital surely commanding the use or fee of land; 
and finally that no small part, often by far the greatest 
part, of the selling price of land represents, on any theory 
of rent, the actual investment of capital merged indistin- 
guishably with the original productive powers of the soil, 
these facts justify me, 1 think, for all present purposes, in 
embracing alike the proprietors of land and the owners of 

* Ricardo's theory of rent applies to land only as it is assumed to be 



THE RETURNS OF CAPITAL. 225 

other forms of wealth which may be used productively, in 
one capital-class. 

Capital, then, whether in land or in some other form, if 
it be employed productively, yields a return to its owner, 
over and above the remuneration of the labor applied. 
The laws which govern these returns of capital it is not 
nfecessary to discuss here. My only concern with the 
capital class is to define its membership and ascertain how 
far that coincides with the membership of the employing 
class. 

But, first, a definition. When capital is employed re- 
productively by the owner, the generic term, returns, suffi- 
ciently describes the increase of production effected there- 
by. When capital is employed by a person not the owner, 
"returns" still describe the increased product; but the 
special terms, rent and interest, come into use to charac- 
terize the sums paid out of those returns to the owner. I 
say " out of those returns," for commonly rent and interest 
are sometliing less than the amount by which the product 
has been enhanced, otherwise it would not ordinarily be 
worth the wliile to borrow and become responsible for the 
capital so applied, though it may happen, and not infre- 
quently does, that the desire of the borrower (I use the 
term here genericalh^, to include the occupier of land) to 
relieve himself of dependence on an employer, by coming 
into possession himself of the agencies and instrumentali- 
ties of production, may lead him to pay more, as interest 
or rent, than the returns of capital, measured by the ex- 
cess of the product over the value of his labor expressed in 
wages at current rates. 

It seems to me best that the words rent and interest 
should only be used where capital is actually leased or 
loaned. There is, indeed, highly respectable authority for 

unimproved. Differences of fertility wrought by actual applications 
of capital, are to be compensated on the same principles as invest- 
ments of equal safety and permanence. 



226 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

saying of a man cultivating liis own land, that he j)ay8 
'rent to himself, or of one using his own circulating capital, 
that \\ki pays interest to himself. But it is better to avoid 
all such strained uses of words which have a precise mean- 
ing, by wdiich the^^ fill an important place in economical 
terminology. Let the returns of capital remain the generic 
term, while rent and interest are employed only with re- 
spect to payments for'capital actually leased or loaned. 

Who, then, constitute the capital class? Who receive 
the returns of capital ? 

With that vast body of propert}-, real and personal, 
which is employed in production by peasant proprietors, 
or occupiers of land under a practically indefeasible ten- 
ure, whether guaranteed by law or imperative custom, this 
treatise has nothing to do, except that it may be noted in 
passing that those who speak of the capitalist as the em- 
ployer of labor, are obliged to regard these peasant pro- 
prietors or occupiers as their own employers, another 
instance of a perversion of economical terms made neces- 
sary by a false analj'Sis. 

If we turn to England and Scotland, where the soil is 
cultivated under farmer-rents, we do not find the owners 
of land employing agricultural labor to any considerable 
extent, except in the ornamentation of grounds, payment 
for which is made out of revenues already acquired, and 
the sums so paid are hence, according to our definition, not 
wages, but salary or stipend. Where agricultui'al laborers 
are employed for profit in England, it is almost universally 
by a middle-man, a farmer, who, on the one hand, leases 
the land from the owner, and on the other agrees with the 
laborer for his work, by the year, the month, or the day, 
oljligating himself to pay landlord and laborer at fixed 
rates, and looking to his own enterprise and economy to 
secure his own remuneration out of a product which 
varies continual!}' with good or ill fortune, with good or 
ill management. The English farmer is, however, almost 



THE CAPITALIST GLASS. 227 

necessarily the owner of circulating capital to some ex- 
tent, not only to guarantee the landlord's rent and the 
laborers' wages, but also to purchase live stock, seed, tools, 
and machinery, and to make advance of wages while the 
crops are growing. But he is not necessarily the owner 
of circulating capital to anything like the extent to which 
he uses "it ; good character and a reputation for business 
capacity will enable him, under the modern organization 
of credit, to command the use of far more than he actually 
possesses. 

In France, peasant proprietorship gives form to the 
agriculture of the country ; but even under the old regime 
the seignior-capitalist did not directly employ labor, and 
Arthur Young pokes fun at the great lords who, desiring 
the reputation of cultivating the soil, when that had be- 
come a fashion in France, let out on shares portions of 
their estates immediately about the chateau ! In the 
United States the land is, as a rule, held either by persons 
corresponding industrially to the " peasant proprietors" of 
Europe, but rejecting that term, and calling themselves 
very inappropriately " farmers," or by larger operators 
Mdio hold the fee of the land and cultivate it by hired 
labor. Land leased for purposes of agriculture is here 
highly exceptional. But while the legal owner of the 
land is thus in a considerable degree the emploj'er of 
labor, it is to a very large extent capital borrowed on note 
or mortgage which enables him to eke out the purcliase 
money of the " farm," to stock it, and to pay wages in 
anticipation of the crop. 

We thus see that even in agriculture, where the effects 
of lordship still survive, the capitalist is not necessaril}'- the 
employer of labor, nor is the employer of labor limited in 
his operations by the extent of his personal ownership of 
capital. But if we turn to the department of mechanical 
industry, in which lordship never had existence, and all 
that has survived from feudal times (the trades unions, as 



328 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

the illegitimate successors of tlie ancient guilds) is antago- 
nistic to the employer's authority; a department which is 
eminently the field of " new men," and in which the hered- 
itary principle is reduced to a minimum, we find the as- 
sumption that the capitalist is the employer, the employer 
the capitalist, monstrously unreal. True it is that the 
employer should be a capitalist, that he should have posses- 
sion of some accumulations, not only to guarantee ^ the 
loans he contracts and the wages he becomes responsible 
for, but also to steady his own operations, lest he should 
act as one who has everything to gain and nothing to lose ; 
true it is that able employers come to own an increasing 
share of the capital used in their increasing business ; and 
that the larger their accumulations become, the greater the 
freedom and strength" with which they conduct business. 
Yet it still remains that the employer is not an employer 
because he is a capitalist, or in proportion as he is a capi- 
talist. Of capitalists under our modern organization of in- 
dustry, but a small minority employ labor ; of employers 
few but use capital far in excess of what they own. More- 
over the employer who owns little capital ; the. employer 
who owns much, and the employer who owns perchance 
all he employs, are not to be distinguished in their indus- 
trial attitude and relations, or in the nature, or, generally 
we may say, in the extent of their operations; but differ 
only in the ease, freedom, and security with which they 
conduct their respective businesses. And that difference is, 
in ordinary times, not very noticeable. One employer, in- 
deed, is down on the books of the Commercial Agency 
with A five times repeated, and his paper is known as 

' Mr. Ricardo makes this distinction in respect to the banker him- 
self. " The distinctive function of the banker begins as soon as he 
uses the money of otliers." Yet, though it is the use of other penple'ri 
money tliat characterizes the banker, it is important tliat he should 
be IvHown or supposed to have money of his own to afford guaranty 
of his good faith and prudence. 



THE CAPITALIST CLASS. 229 

" gilt edged." Another must be content to be rated lower 
by the Agency, live smaller, pay a little more interest on 
loans, run around a little more lively before the close of 
banking hours, and be served after his betters. But the 
outside world sees verj'^ little difference, granting them 
equality of business ability, in their employment of labor 
or conduct of affairs. 

Who, then, are the capitalists who are not employers of 
labor ? I answer, first, those who by age, sex, or infirm- 
ity are disabled from active operations; men retired from 
business, women of all ages, children and young persons of 
both sexes, the crippled and incompetent for whom provis- 
ion has been made ; these, in the order of nature, own a 
large part of the property of the world. If their wealth is 
in their own hands, they know their limitations, and do 
not undertake to emplo}^ it personally ; if their wealth is 
held for them, the responsibilities of the trustee or guar- 
dian are incompatible with the ventures of manufacture or 
trade. Secondly, those who, from dignity and love of 
leisure, as is especially the case with men of inherited 
means, are indisposed to increase their store by active ex- 
ertions, but live upon their income ; and those who are 
engaged in professions ' which do not allow the invest- 
ment of their earnings. Thirdly, the laboring classes, 
whether receiving wages or salaries, who are able, even 
out of scanty earnings, to make savings which they are, 
fi'om the nature of their industrial position, unable to 
apply personally to production. Small as are the individ- 
ual contributions of this class to the loanable capital of a 
community, the statistics of the savings banks show what 
is the virtue of a large multiplier. There might be added, 
perhaps should be added, to the vast aggregate of capital 
thus constituted, the accumulating profits of industries 

^ E. g., Lawyers, physicians, clergymen, architects, engineers, gov- 
ernment officials, and the like. 



300 TUB WAGES QUESTION. 

which arc :ih'e;uly full of capital uj) ti) the point of " di- 
luinishing returns," where overflow must take place into 
newer bninches of production. Thus no small part of the 
net annual profits of ajj^riculture in Somersetshire and 
llampsliiro go up to London to be loaned to the manufac- 
turers of Yorkshire and Jjancashire ; ^ while in the United 
States the current is reverseil, and the manufacturing divi- 
dends of New England gi> to the AV'^est to be invested in 
agriculture, which can still afford to pay eight, ten, and 
even twelve per cent. Here again we have a large body 
of capital, which, though the owners of it are employers 
in some branch of industry, yet goes to sweU the aggregate 
of loanable capital to which employers who are not capi- 
talists, or wlio wish to bo employers beyond the extent 
which their own capital permits, may resort under the 
modern ora-anization of credit. 



It is so clear that the membership of the capitalist class 
is not coincident with that of the employing class, not- 
withstanding the use by the economists of the word capi- 
talist to signify the employer of labor ; and the subject of 
the relation of the capitalist to the employer is, as far as I 
have occasion to consider it, so simple, that I should not 
have devoted a separate chapter to this class, but have de- 
lined it in remarks introductory of the employing class 
proper, were it not that I desired to emphasize this my 
difference with the text-book writers ; and secondly and 
chiefly, that it becomes necessary for me to take exception 
to the use, by the same M'riters, of the word Profits, an 
exception best taken under the present title. 

My exception is not on linguistic grounds. Profits, so 
far as the etymology of the word goes, might include in- 
terest, rent, wages, and the gain derived from the conduct 

• Bagehot's Lombard Street, p. 13. 



DEFINITION OF PROFITS. 331 

of business, any one or all of these. The economists gen- 
erally use the word to express the returns of capital.^ I 
propose to express by it the gains of the employing class, 
letting the returns of capital stand as previously explained 
in this chapter. By what, then, do the economists express 
that which I call profits? I answer, that as they refuse to 
the employing class a separate entity ,2 so they, logically 
enough, practically deny the existence of profits distinctly 
from the returns of capital. If the employer, mIio is 
assumed to become an employer because he is a capitalist, 
and to the extent to which he is a capitalist, gives his per- 
sonal attention and his time to the business, they acknowl- 
edge that he receives an addition to his income on that ac- 
count, which addition they define as " the wages of super- 
vision and management." This they regard as belonging 
strictly to the category of wages, and treat the case pre- 
cisely as if the employer or "capitalist'' had dispensed 
with a paid overseer, superintendent, or manager, and 
drawn the salary of the position himself — otherwise his 
"profits" are all the proper returns of capital. If he 
chooses to withdraw his personal attention and retain the 
overseer, superintendent, or manager, then his " profits " 
have no such foreign admixture. 

But inasmuch as the theory of distribution offered in 

» " Profits proper, or interest." — Prof. Rogers, Pol. Econ., p. 139. 

"The return for abstinence is profit." — Prof. Cairnes' " Some Lead- 
ing Principles," etc., p. 48. 

" As Mr. Amasa Walker is the only systematic writer on political 
economy, with whose work I am familiar, who recognizes the employ- 
ers of labor as constituting a distinct industrial class, so he is the only 
one who gives the word. Profits the significance it has in the text. 
" By the term profits we mean that share of wealth, which, in the 
general distribution, falls to those who eflFect an advantageous union 
between labor and capital .... the parties, then, to production 
are (1) the laborer, (2) the capitalist, (3) the employer, or manager. 
Each ha.3 a distinct province and a separate interest." — Science of 
Wealth, pp. 279-80. 



233 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

tliis treatise requires the recognition of tlie employers ol 
labor as a distinct industrial class (see Chapter XIV), per- 
forming a function of high importance, something beyond 
" supervision and management," as exercised by hired 
agents, it is evident that a term is needed to designate the 
share of this class in the product of industry. !N"o\v, 
while the use Avhich the text-books make of the term 
Profits is, as has been said, not objectionable on linguistic 
grounds, that which is here proposed certainly corresponds 
far better to the popular usage, at least in America. I 
cannot speak with assurance in respect to the significance 
of the word in England ; but witli us, few practical men 
would understand a manufacturer's or a merchant's profits 
to include his interest-account. Webster's Dictionary 
gathers the American sense of the word correctly in the 
following definition : " The 2>f'oJH of the tanner and the 
manufacturer is the gain made by sale of produce or man- 
ufactures, after deducting the value of the labor, materials, 
rent, and all expenses, together with the interest of the 
capital employed, whether land, machinery, buildings, 
instruments, or money." And since this use of the word 
agrees thus with the speech of practical men, while the 
term, Eeturns of Capital, is perfectly descriptive of the 
•object to which it is applied, I trust the reader will not 
revolt at beingi asked to carry through the further course 
of this enquiry the definition of Profits, as the remunera- 
tion of the employing class, or the gains of business. 

According to our analysis and definition, then, tha 
parties to the distribution of the product of modern indus- 
try, in its highest organization, and the shares they re- 
spectively receive, are as follows : 

1. The Wages Class Wages. 

^ 2. The Capitalist Class Returns of Capital (Rent : Interest). 

3. The Employing Class Profits. 



IS INTEREST AT ITS MINIMUM f 333 

Are the returns of capital alreacl_y at or near the mini- 
mum? A very common answer to complaints respecting 
the inadequacy of wages, or to schemes for securing their 
increase, is that the returns of capital are already as low 
as it is for the interest of the laborers themselves they 
should go ; that if a smaller annual return were to be 
made to the capitalist for the use of his accumulated 
wealth, the disposition to save would be so far affected 
thereby as to reduce the store of capital, and thus diminish 
employment. 1 am embarrassed in making quotations 
from economical writers to show the direction of this 
argument, by the fact that they generally use the word 
profits ^ to express the returns of capital (including remu- 
neration for its risk), but with always a possible addition 
of "the wages of supervision and management," It is, 
therefore, difficult to say whether, in a specific instance, 
the rate of interest is referred to alone, or the remunera- 
tion of the man of business, after estimating the proper 
returns of capital, is also included. Eut as the latter 
element is treated as of comparatively slight importance, 
I think I may assume that, when Professor Cairnes says 
" Profits are already at or within a hand's breadth of the 
minimum," '■' he refers chiefly, if not wholly, to the returns 
Tipon capital. Of course, if profits be at the minimum, 
an}'- increase of wages which involved a further reduction 
in the retui'ns of capital,' would nnquestionablj^ be detri- 
mental. Prof. Fawcett thus works out the effects of such 
a reduction : " If profits are diminished, there is not so 
great an inducement to save, and the amount of capital 
accumulated will decrease ; the wages fund will conse- 

1 " Profit : a word which, like many others in political economy, is 
very loosely applied." — Prof. Rogers' Pol. Econ., p. 5. 

2 " Some Leading Principles," etc., p. 258. 

3 It has been shown that it is possible that an advance of wages 
may be made in several ways without involving a reduction either in 
profits or in the returns of capital. 



2^4 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

quently be diiniiiishcd, and there will be a smaller amount 
to distribute among the laboring classes." ^ 

But I fail wholly to understand what evidence Prof. 
Oairnes can have had that the retui-ns of capital are at or 
near the minimum. Jf he liad in view the fact that in 
England the rate of interest and the returns from capital 
invested in land are now so low that a continually increas- 
ing amount of capital is going abroad to newer countries, 
this is undoubtedly true ; but it affords no proof that the 
rate of interest in England has reached the point where a 
further reduction would touch the principle of frugality 
in the quick. Every dollar of British capital fortunately 
invested in Australia or the United States helps to cheapen 
the materials of British manufactures, and to widen the 
market for British products. So long as these new coun- 
tries enjoy such extraordinary natural advantages, English 
capital will doubtless continue to go abroad ; but were 
these countries filled up with capital, so as to bring the 
rate of interest down to what it is in England, where is 
the reason for believing that Englishmen would not save 
their wealth for the sake of an annual return lower than 
the present ? The return to an investor in the British 
consols, which are regarded as the ideal security, is about 
three and three-sevenths per cent, per annum. The in- 
surance companies realize about four and one-half per 
cent, on their investments. Railway shares paying five 
]^er cent, a year sell ordinarily close on 100. Could Prof. 
Cairnes have meant that, if Englishmen could not get five 
per cent, for their capital, or at least three and three-sev- 
enths per annum, they would consume it in self-indul- 
gence? But we know that the Dutch have accumulated 
vast savings on still lower inducements, for the rate of 
interest in Holland long ruled at two and one-half per 
cent., while the government borrowed freely at two per 

' Pol. Econ., p. 343. 



TEE MOTIVE TO SA VING. 235 

cent. Nor Imve we any grounds for assuming that even 
a lower rate might not find people still saving, be it from 
profits, from wages, or from the returns of previously 
existing capital. 

One consideration of importance, which is often lost 
sight of in this connection, is that the motive to save con- 
tains an element besides the expectation of an annual 
income from the accumulation. Saving is also in the 
nature of an insurance against the casualties of life. The 
strength of this motive to self-denial for the sake of insur- 
ance alone, is seen in communities where there are no 
banks, as in many of the departments of France, and no 
means of oi'dinary investment, where yet vast sums are 
accumulated by the peasantry.^ Not the less in countries 
where banks afford the safe and sure means of deriving 
present revenue from savings, does this' desire to save, as 
an insurance against the inevitable ills of life, constitute a 
considerable part of the motive to accumulation. Men 
would in a degree provide against old age and sickness, 
provide for the possible widowhood and orphanage of 
those dependent on them, were there no interest on 
money; and saving thus, a very low rate of interest on 
absolutely safe investments would call their funds into 
productive use. 

Now this view, the justice of which cannot, I think, 
be questioned, affords the means of judging somewhat 
more critically the statement of Prof. Fawcett just quoted. 
Prof. Fawcett says, If wages are enhanced, profits are 
diminished, and hence less capital will be accumulated. 
But we know, both from the reason of the case and from 
the statistics of the savings banks, that capital may be ac- 
cumulated from wages as well as from profits, whether we 
understand by that term, the returns of capital, or the 

' European financiers have been more than once astonished by the 
enormous accumulations of the French peasantry, when these were 
tapped by a popular loan. 



236 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

gains of business. Does any one say, a reduction in the 
rate of interest would afiect the disposition of the laborers 
to save out of their wages equally with the disposition of 
the capitalist or the employers, to save out of their earn- 
ings? I answer, no, decidedly not. The motive to save, 
for the sake of insurance, operates with far greater force 
among the laboring class than among the more fortunate 
classes. Thus, taking the case of a hundred laborers work- 
ing for one employer, can it be doubted that the desires of 
all these individuals, even if we make deduction of spend- 
thrifts and drunkards, to provide against old age, sickness, 
and the premature death of the bread-winner, would con- 
stitute a stronger force to direct towards savings an extra 
thousand pounds of wages, than would the corresponding 
desire on the part of the single employer, in the matter of 
an extra thousand pounds of profits ? That this would be 
so in France or Germany, would not, I think, be questioned 
l)y any Frenchman or German. If it should not prove so 
in England, it would be in no small degree due to the fact 
that the tenure of the land, the true savings banks of the 
people, has been so much embarrassed by statute and by 
judicial fictions. 

It should, of course, be expected that a large and sud- 
den increase of wages, due to general industrial causes like 
that which took place four years ago in the iron and coal ^ 
trades of Great Britain, would, most likely, human nature 
being what it is, be employed in ministering, more or less, 
to folly and vice, or squandered in expenditures, not per- 
haps hurtful in themselves, but unnecessary, and therefore, 
as against a strong reason for saving, mischievous. The 
possible increase of wages which I have in view is rather 
a steady advance due to the increasing mobility of labor 
from the growth of the industrial virtues, enabling the 

* Coal rose, between July 1871, and February, 1873, in the proportion 
of 100 to 256, iron following, though at a considerable interval. 



1 



INTEREST AT THE MINIMUM. 237 

wages class to resort more promptly to their market, and 
to press their employers more closely with a truly effective 
competition. Wages thus won would, in general, be well 
employed. 

So much for that desire to make savings as an insurance 
ao'ainst the contino^encies of life and health, which is one 
element of the principle of frugality. Of the other, and 
doubtless more important, element, the desire to secure an 
annual income from investments, or from the personal use 
of capital, it is not necessary to speak here at any length. 
I know no reason for believing that interest in any coun- 
try has reached its minimum, that is, the point where the 
desire to spend overpowers the disposition to save, in such 
a proportion of instances as to waste capital, or to prevent 
it from increasing proportionally to population and to the 
opportunities for its reproductive use at current rates. 



It is quite another question whether it makes any differ- 
ence whether the returns of capital are at the minimum, or 
are very much above that point. I have already ^ quoted 
a paragraph from Prof. Perry in which he takes the 
ground that if, from any cause, an undue amount of the 
product of industry goes to the share of the capitalist-em- 
ployer, nothing can defeat the tendency that the excess 
shall be restored to wages. Prof. Cairnes, in his " Lead- 
ing Principles," has expressed himself on the same ques- 
tion as follows : 

" Thus, supposing," he says, " a group of employers to 
have succeeded, as no doubt w^ould be perfecth' possible 
for them, in temporarily forcing down wages by combina- 
tion in a particular trade, a portion of their wealth previ- 
ously invested would now become free — how would it be 
employed ? Unless we are to suppose the character of a 

> Pp. 81-2. 



98* THE WAGES QUESTION. 

large section of a cominnnit}^ to be suddenly changed in a 
leading attribute, the wealth so withdrawn from wages 
would, in the end, and before long, be restored to wages. 
The same motives which led to its investment would lead 
to its reinvestment, and once reinvested, the interests of 
those concerned would cause it to be distributed amongst 
the several elements of capital in the same proportion as 
before. In this way covetousncM U held in check hy cov- 
etoiisness, and the desire for aggrandizement sets limits to 
its own gratification." 

The doctrine here seems to be that the desire for accu- 
mulation, or aggrandizement,^ is a constant force, and thus 
the effects of covetousness, through the employer's efforts 
to give the laborer as little as may be for his services, are 
compensated b}' the effects of covetousness through the 
emplover's eiforts to make a profit on the amount thus 
saved by again euiploying it in the purchase of labor. 
The motives to investment and reinvestment are therefore 
ecjual. 

Now it seems to me that this doctrine is inconsistent 
with any recognition of the varying strength of the econo- 
mical motives. While in particular instances, with per- 
sons of the miserly, disposition, the passion for accumula- 
tion may grow with increasing wealth, the observation of 
every one must convince him that, with tlie vast majority 
of men, especially in this age of retinement and of artificial 
wants, the impulse to spend luxuriously acquires force, 
after the comforts and decencies of life are once provided 
for, faster than the impulse to save ; that large incomes 
are not applied as severely and judiciously to further get- 
ting as are moderate incomes ; that the rich expend their 
revenues with a lavishness, a capriciousness and a heed- 
lessness which are unknown to men of smaller means. If 
this be so, and, with full regard to no inconsiderable num- 

> Pp. 278-9. 



INTEREST AT THE MINIMUM. 239 

ber of particular instances to the contrary, I do not think 
it will be denied, then tlie motives to reinvestment cannot 
be held to be necessarily equal to the motives to invest- 
ment ; and instead of covetousness being held in check by 
covetousness, luxuriousness comes in to consume a portion 
at least of such excessive gains. 

It needs to be noted, moreover, that, upon Prof. Cairnes' 
own doctrine of " non-competing groups,"^ it would not 
follow that the suras thus taken from one body of labor- 
ers in excessive profits will be restored in wages to the 
class or classes suffering such losses. Capital having, on 
Prof. Cairnes' statement, a much higher degree of mobility 
than labor, the body of laborers to be benefited by such 
restoration of profits to wages, will not necessarily, or even 
probably, be identical with that which was in the first in- 
stance depleted. And if a right distribution of the pro- 
ducts of industry be important to secure the highest indus- 
try and zeal in future production, then incontestibly, in 
addition to all considerations of the iniquity of thus bleed- 
ing one class for the benefit of others, we have a strictly 
economic argument against the theory of the practical in- 
difference of the present proportions of wages and profits. 



But we may go further and say that all this kind of 
reasoning in economics which makes the employing or the 
capitalist class, in a state of imperfect competition, the 
guardians of the wages class, in such a way that it really 
doesn't matter whether the laborer gets all the wages he 
might, or even, at any specified time, gets any at all, because 
excessive profits will further enrich those other classes who 
hold their wealth as a sort of sacred trust for liim, so that 
at another time he will get all the more, if he gets less or 
nothing now — all this sort of reasoning is much to be dis- 

' See p. 104. 



240 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

trusted. And I cannot sufficiently express my astonish- 
ment that an economist of Prof. Cairnes' eminent ability, 
who made the most important contribntion ever offered 
in modification of the theory of competition, and who 
pointed out tlie frightful hiatus in Ba^tiat's coniposition of 
the Economical Harmonies,' should have fallen into the 
trap at this point. Anything more contradictoiy of his 
own doctrine of the extensive failure of competition, and 
the want of harmony between the interests of the work- 
man and the employer, as each imderstands his interests 
and is prepared to act with reference thereto, than this 
assumption of the certain restoration to wages of all sums 
taken for excessive profits, it would be impossible to 
conceive. 

It is a poor rule that doesn't work l)oth ways. Yet 
writers who hold it to be of no consequence at all that the 
"capitalists'' should, by pressure brought upon the labor- 
ers, reduce tlieir wages below the equitable point, since 
the extra profits thus acquired are certain to be restored 
to wages, seem to regard it as a subject of just apprehen- 
sion lest laborers should, by trades unions or strikes, bring 
a pressure to bear, on their side, which might reduce 
profits unduly. But why should not such extra wages be 
restoi^ed to j^rqfit'i, just as certainly, peacefully, and auto- 
matically ? What difference does it make if the "capital- 
ist," in any given time or place, gets an inadequate profit, 
or indeed no profit at all»? He will only get just so much 
more the next time. Certainly, if the laborer can wait 
to have excessive profits restored to wages, the " capitalist" 
can wait to have extra wages restored to profits. 

This notion of a see-saw between wages and profits is 
well hit-off in a story which Governor Winthrop tells : " I 
may upon this occasion report a passage between one of 
Rowley and his servant. The master being forced to sell 

> See p. 164. 



THE LABORER HIS OWN GUARDIAN. 341 

a pair of oxen to pay his servant his wages, told his ser- 
vant he could keep him no longer, not knowing how to 
pay him the next year. The servant answered him that 
he wonld serve him for more of his cattle. But how shall 
I do (saith the master) when all my cattle are gone ? The 
servant replied, you shall then serve me, and so you may 
have your cattle again.^^ ^ Surely, if a man becomes an 
employer in industry, only because he is a capitalist, and 
as he is a capitalist, the servant in this story was not more 
of a wag than of a political economist. 



ISTo, in a state of imperfect competition, the employer is 
not the laborer's guardian, or the trustee of his earnings. 
The workman's legitimate wages are a great deal better 
in his own pocket, or standing in his own name on the 
books of the savings bank, than paid into the hands of the 
employer as extra profits. The reasoning to the contrary, 
on the assumption of a vital harmony of interests, cannot 
fail to remind one of the economical plea, with which it is 
point by point identical, once so widely urged, that the 
owner's interest would abundantly protect the slave against 
ph^'sical abuse or privation. It is also closely analogous 
with the political plea by which the privileged classes 
have always sought to show that it really didn't matter 
how much political power was entrusted to them ; that the 
interests of rich and poor, high and low were indissolubly 
bound up together, so that if one suffered, all must suffer 
with it ; and that, therefore, the class most intelligent, 
most apt for government, having most leisure for public 
affairs, with, moreover, the largest stake in society, might 
safely be trusted to make and execute all laws, their own 
true and permanent interests prohibiting them from any 
and every course prejudicial to the lower classes, who 

» History of New England, 11. 319-30. 



342 THE WAGES 'QUESTION. 

could not, it was urged, be in any wa}'^ oppressed but that 
social and industrial disorders would afford immediate 
retribution for the neglect of duty or abuse of power on 
the part of their self-constituted guardians. 

The argument is a very pretty one, but alas ! and alas ! 
what a dreary and sickening tale is that of the exactions 
and oppressions of the Old Rfegime ! There is no class fit 
to determine its own rights and prescribe the duties of 
others. Inevitably will tyranny be engendered, whenever 
there is weakness or helplessness on the one side. N'oblesse 
oblige ; and the sentiments of compassion and charity go 
far to mitigate the natural severity of legislation and 
administration ; but, after all, there is only one way in 
which the rights of any body of men can be secured, and 
that is by being placed in their own keeping. 



^c^' 



'y^^' 



CHAPTER XIM,^ ^Jjn 

THE EMPLOYING CLASS! THE ENTREPRENEUR) FUNCTION I 
THE PROFITS OF BUSINESS. 

We have seen (Chapter I.) that much confusion has been 
introdnced into the theory of wages by the economists 
carrying the classification which results from their analy- 
sis of functions in production over into the distribution of 
wealth, assuming, it would seem, that industrial functions 
must needs characterize distinct industrial classes. We 
have seen that, in fact, the laborer and the capitalist are 
largely the same person ; and that no division of the pro- 
duct into shares, representing the claims of different par- 
ties, in such cases takes place. We have now to note a 
further source of error in the almost universal neglect by 
the text-book writers to make account of an industrial 
function which, while, the world over and history through, 
it characterizes a class no more^ than labor or capital, does 
yet, in the most highly organized forms of industry, espe- 
cially in these modern times, characterize a distinct and a 
most important class. This class comprises the modern 
employers of labor, men of business, " capfains of indus- 
try." It is much to be regretted that we have not a single 
English word which exactly fits the person who performs 
this office in modern industry. The word " undertaker," 

^ Thus the peasant proprietor takes all the responsibilities of pro- 
duction, determines its courses and its methods, and acts, so to speak, 
as the entrepreneur in respect to his own little affairs, at the same 
time owning the capital employed and performing all the labor. 



244 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

the man wlio undertakes, at one time liad very much this 
extent ; but it has long since been so e\'clnsively devoted 
to funereal uses as to become an impossible term in politi- 
cal econom3\ The word "adventurer," the man who 
makes ventures, also had this sense ; but in modern par- 
lance it has acquired a wholly sinister meaning. The 
French word " entrepreneur " has very nearly the desired 
significance ; and it may be that the exigencies of politico- 
economical reasoning will yet lead to its being naturalized 
among us. 

This function, then, of the man of business, middleman, 
undertaker, adventurer, entrepreneur, employer, requires 
to be carefully discriminated. 

The economists, almost without exception, have regarded 
capital and labor as together sufficient unto production, 
the capitalist being the emploj'er, the laborer being the 
employed. It may fairly be presumed that the failure to 
recognize a third party to production, the middleman, has 
been due in part "to the fact that these writers have been 
accustomed to take their illustrations of the offices of labor 
and capital from the savage state, or at least from a very 
primitive condition of industiy. The bow, the spear, the 
canoe, are the favorite subjects when it is to be shown 
how it is that the results of labor may pass into the form 
of capital ; how it is that capital may assist current labor; 
and how it is that a reward can be given to capital out of 
the product of industry without any wrong being done to 
the laborer. And it is true that when the forms of pro- 
duction are few and sinq:)le, and when the producer and 
the consumer are either the same person, or are found in 
close proximity, the possession of capital is the one suffi- 
cient qualification for the employment of labor ; and, on the 
other hand, a supply of food and of tools and materials is 
all that labor needs to institute production. 

But when, in the development of industry, the forms of 
production become almost infinitely numerous and eorapli- 



THE EMPLOYING CLASS. 245 

cated ; when many persons of all degrees of skill and 
strength must be joined in labor, each in his place contri- 
buting to a result which he very imperfectly, if at all, com- 
prehends ; when the materials to be used are brought from 
distant fields, and the products are in turn to be scattered 
by the agencies of commerce over vast regions, the con- 
sumers constituting an ill-defined or an undefined body, 
personally unknown to the producer or any immediate 
agent of his ; then a reason for an emploj'er exists which is 
wholly in addition to that which exists in a primitive con- 
dition of industry. The mere possession of capital no 
longer constitutes the one qualification for employing labor ; 
and, on the other hand, the laborer no longer looks to the 
employer to furnish merely food and the materials and 
tools of the trade ; but to furnish also technical skill, com- 
mercial knowledge, and powers of administration ; to as- 
sume responsibilities and provide against contingencies ; to 
shape and direct production, and to organize and control 
the industrial machinery. And, moreover, so much more 
important and difiicult are the last specified duties of the 
employer; so much rarer are the abilities they require, 
that he who can perform these will find it easy to perform 
those ; if he be the man to conduct business, capital to 
purchase food, tools, and materials will not, under our 
modern system of credit, long be wanting to him. On the 
other hand, without these higher qualifications, the capi- 
talist will employ labor at the risk, or almost the certainly, 
of total or partial loss. The employer thus rises to be 
master of the situation. It is no longer true that a man 
becomes an employer because he is a capitalist. Men 
command capital because they have the qualifications to 
profitably employ labor. To these, captains of industry, 
despots of industry, if one pleases to call them so, capital 
and labor alike resort for the opportunity to perform their 
several functions. I do not mean that the employer is not 
in any case, or to any extent, a capitalist ; but that he is 



346 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

not an employer simply because he is a capitalist, or to 
the extent only to which he is a capitalist. 

Now all this is evident to any man who looks carefully 
on our modern industry. Yet the economists, having 
made their analysis of production in a primitive state, 
wholly neglect these later developed duties of the em- 
ployer, this new and far higher function ; and insist on 
regarding the capitalist as himself the employer. They 
resolve the entire industrial community into capitalists 
and laborers;^ and divide the whole product between tlie 
two. To the contrary, I hold that no theory of the dis- 
tribution of wealth, in modern industry, can be couiplete 
which fails to make account of the employing class, as dis- 
tinguished in idea, and largely also in its jyersonnel, from 
the capitalist class. 

It would, I admit, be difficult to prove the importance 
of the entrepreneur function in industry, just as it would 
be difficult by argument to establish in the mind of an 
objector, a true conception of the functions of the general 
in war. Those who know nothing about warfare might 
believe that campaigns could be conducted on the principle 
of popular rights and universal suffrage. Why not ? 
There is the materiel of war (capital) in abundance ; here 
are the soldiers (laborers), who, if any lighting is to be 
done, will have to do the whole of it ; \vhy should not 
these soldiers take those guns, and do their work ? In 
much the same way, those who know little practically 
about production are easily pei'suaded that the trouble- 
some and expensive " captain of industry" may be dis- 
})ensed with, and his place occupied by a committee or a 
mass meeting. 

' "The ultimate partners in any production maybe divided into 
two classes, capitalists and laborers. ... If the distributor be the 
capitalist, the share of the laborer is called wages. If the distributor 
be the laborer, the share of the capitalist is called either interest or 
rent." — Hearu's Plutology, pp. 325-7. 



THE EMPLOYING CLASS. 247 

We have had but few instances of actual attempts to 
conduct campaigns on the town-meeting plan, the most 
notable, perhaps, being the crusade of Walter the Penni- 
less and the first Bull E.un ; but there have been numerous 
eflPorts made to get rid of the entrepreneur, and it is in the 
almost universal failure of such efforts that we have the 
highest evidence of the importance of this functionary in 
modern industry. Cooperation,^ which is nothing more y^ 
or less than the doing away with the middleman, has 
several distinct advantages, of vast scope, in production ; 
vet these have been weighed down again and again, even 
under conditions most favorable to the experiment, by the 
losses resulting from the suspension of the employing 
function. Let those who resolve the industrial community 
into capitalists and laborers only, and divide the whole 
product between these two classes, explain, if they can, 
the failures of cooperation. 

It has been said that the omission of the economists to 
recognize the employers as a distinct class in modern in- 
dustry, is presumably due, in part, to the tendency to go 
back to the savage, or to a very primitive state, for illus- 
trations of the nature and offices of labor and capital. 
But I believe that it is also in part due to the fact that 
the real employing class is covered up, more or less, from 
casual view, by what may be called a false employing 
class, many times more numerous. This false employing 
class, as I make bold to call it, is composed of several con- 
siderable bodies of so-called employers. 

1. Those who hire servants or retain assistants who are 
to be paid out of revenues already acquired. Reasons 
have already ^ been assigned for removing persons so en- 
gaged or employed from the wages class, and treating 
them by themselves as the " salary or stipend class.'' Of ' 

' A wholly erroneous conception of cooperation, due to the neglect 
of the entrepreneur-function, is exposed on page 264. 
= P. 215. 



348 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

course, the same reasons require the removal of their 
masters or patrons froui the lists of the employing class. 
If we were to consider the domestic servants, alone, of 
England and the United States, we should lind the so- 
called employers to be far more numerous than those who 
pay wages to laborers whom they hire for profit. Ko 
wonder that when those who are paid out of revenue are 
confounded with those who are paid out of the product of 
their labor, the inclusion of the masters of the former 
class should obstruct the view of the far less numerous 
employers of the latter class. 

2. In this false employing class are large numbers of 
artisans who have single apprentices. Such an artisan 
might, for instance, earn $500 a year by his own unassisted 
labor, while his gains by the apprentice's services might 
be $50. So far, doubtless, he is an employer of labor, and 
his gains are entitled, on a nice judgment of the case, to 
be called "profits ; " but these bear so small a proportion 
to his other source of income, and he is, in his capacitj^ of 
employer, of so little account, that we cannot afford to be 
encumbered by carrying him on as the employer of a third 
or a fifth part of an able laborer. A single cotton manu- 
facturer or iron master may employ a thousand times, or 
five thousand times, as much effective labor. It is of more 
importance that we should see the cotton manufacturer 
and the iron master in their true relations to the great body 
of labor seeking employment, than that we should trouble 
ourselves about the economical status of the fraction of a 
laborer who is perhaps, at present, spoiling more material 
than his work is worth. The principle of the law, de mini- 
rais non cttratw, applies with even greater force in politi- 
cal economy. What we need in studying the problem of 
distribution is not a nice theoretical classification, but a 
just and strong exhibition of the great groups of our mod- 
ern industrial society.^ 

' For remarks of Prof. Cainies regarding the office of economic de- 
finition, see page 218. 



THE FALSE EMPLOYING GLASS. 249 

3, Another large body which we need to exclude, tem- 
porarily, at least, from the employing class, in order that 
we may get a proper view of its real constitution, is that 
where the condition is one of nominal employment but of 
substantial partnership. This includes a great number of 
cases where two men, or perhaps three, of a trade, approxi- 
mately equal in skill and experience, the work of the one 
being merely a repetition of the work of the other, labor 
together at the bench, one being recognized as the master, 
the other receiving wages ; yet where the reason for one 
being the employer and the other the employed is so 
slight, the equality of skill and experience so well main- 
tained, the character and the profits of the business so 
well understood by him who receives wages, and the 
ability of that person to set up for himself so evident, that 
the employer virtually becomes little more than the senior 
member of a partnership where the nominal wages and 
terms of service are scaled to give a substantial equality of 
remuneration, with some slight compensation to the senior 
member for extra trouble and responsibility. 

4. There remains to be characterized a fourth class of 
persons to whom I do not wish to deny the title of em- 
ployer, but whom it is desirable for the moment to isolate, 
those, namely, who, having mistakenly become by occupa- 
tion the employers of labor, through helplessness or false 
pride cling to the skirts of the profession, and i^emain in 
a small and miserable way conductors of industry, follow- 
ing humbly and at a distance the example of leading 
houses; content, in flush times, to make a. little profit on a 
little product, using generally antiquated machinery, con- 
suming materials of doubtful quality, and making a low 
class of goods, but shutting up promptly on the first inti- 
mation of hard times, or just so soon as competition be- 
comes close and persistent. Numerically the men of this 
class constitute a considerable proportion of every trade ; 
but if we consider the aggregate product, their part is com- 
paratively slight. 



250 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

I do not mean to embrace in this class any manufacturer 
merely because his establishment is a small one. It would 
be easy to show that in some departments of production, 
perhaps in most, petty establishments fill a place, take up 
a certain amount of labor not othei'wise employed (as, for 
instance, the labor of the wives and daughters of agricul- 
turists in the immediate neighborhood), find a distinct 
market to which, in a homely but useful way, they adapt 
themselves perhaps better than the monster factory can do. 
The commerce of the world requires not only the ship of 
5,000 tons, but the schooner, the lighter, and the dory. 

Yet of no small part of these petty establishments which 
make short runs from point to point between storm and 
squall, it may be boldly asserted that they answer no true 
industrial purpose. Their only 7'aison d'elre is found in 
the fact that their proprietors, having committed them- 
selves to the profession of the entrepreneur, having come 
into the possession of a certain auiount of the machinery 
and agencies of production, and being unable to betake 
theniselves, at the point of life they have reached, to an- 
other occupation, or being unwilling to so openly confess 
failure, can pick up a very poor living in this way. And 
of employers of this sort, it is significant to note, laborers 
are not apt to be jealous. They are known to have a 
pretty hard time of it. Their lot is not envied, and they 
commonly receive the sympathy of the general community 
and of their hands ; while the successful captain of indus- 
try, who amasses a giant fortune, is regarded by not a few 
as having despoiled the laboring class. Yet it is incon- 
testable that the profits of the former constitute by far the 
heavier tax, dollar for dollar, upon the product of labor. 
Nothing costs the working classes so dearly, in the long 
run, as the bad or merely commonplace conduct of 
business. 



THE REAL EMPLOYING CLASS. 251 

Putting aside for the moment the several classes enu- 
merated, we have plainly in view the real emploj'ing class 
of our modern industrial society : a comparatively small 
body of men, who control the destinies of labor no more 
than they do the destinies of capital. These men consti- 
tute a class strictly limited in numbers, and dealing most 
despotically, as indeed they must, with the outside world. 
The conditions of admission are a long self-initiation, a 
high premium of immediate loss, and a great degree of 
uncertainty as to ultimate success. Into this guild, in 
these modern days, no aspirant for profits needs to be 
inducted witli ceremonies, or first invited by the existing 
membership. All are in theory free to enter ; but the 
number who venture is closely restricted by the known 
conditions of business. Those only undertake it who are 
able, or, like the rowers of Mnestheus, think they are able, 
to sustain the ordeal of fierce and unrelenting competition ; 
while those wlio have the courage to venture are contin- 
ually sifted by commercial and industrial pressures and 
panics, so that only the fittest survive. 

I have no wish to idealize the successful employer of 
labor. He may easily be found to be a very nnamiable 
and a very uninteresting person. For the perfect temper 
of business something doubtless of hardness is needed, just 
as it is the alloy of baser metal which fits the gold for cir- 
culating in the hands of men. A little too much sensi- 
bility or a little too much imagination, is often a sufficient 
cause of failure in the stern competitions of business. The 
successful entrepreneur need not even understand the 
theory of trade, or be a financier in the larger sense of that 
word. A kind of subtle instinct often directs the move- 
ments of the ablest merchants, bankers, and manufacturers. 
The}' know that the market is about to experience a con- 
vulsion, because they know it ; just as the cattle know 
that a storm is brewing. They not only could not give 
reasons intelligible to others for the course they take ; they 



253 THE WAOES QUESTION. 

do not even analyze their intellectual processes for their 
own satisfaction. 

It is not necessarj' to draw the outlines of the represen- 
tative entrepreneur. Living illustrations will rise before 
the mind of every reader, far more vivid than any art of 
mine could execute. M. Courcelle-Seneuil, in his Opera- 
tions de JBanqtie, has grouped the qualities the employer 
should possess : " du jugement, du bon sens, de la fermete, 
de la decision, une appreciation froide et calrae, uue intel- 
ligence ouverte et vigilante, pen d'imagination, beaucoup 
de memoire et d'application." ^ 

I said that the real employing class is comparatively 
small. I do not speak alone of those employing workmen 
by the thousand or the ten thousand, or even of those 
alone whose pay-rolls count up hundreds of hands." If 
we go down to the captains of fifties and the captains of 
tens, it still remains true that the bulk of the wage-labor 
of England, France, Germany, and the United States, is 
controlled by a small, choice band of men, who are masters 
in industry because, whatever be their social quality, in 
industry they are nuisterly. To call these men the creat- 
ures of their workmen, and speak of the sums they exact 
in royalty on all the business which passes through their 
hands, as "the wages of supervision and management," 
seems to me as idle a fiction as it would Jiave been to call 
the seigniors under the Old Regime the social representa- 
tives of the tiers etat, and to speak of the sums they 
lavished in pomp and pleasure, as their " allowances." 

Are profits already at the minimum, so that we may 

' P. 392. 

■^ Thus, even in Austria, one of the most backward of European 
countries in the organization of industry, we find that 493 employers 
provide lodging for not less than 59,343 workmen. In France, Messrs. 
Schneider & Co. (" Le Creusot") employ 10,000 workmen. Anzin 
employs 15,000 under a single direction. At the great cannon foundry 
of Krupp, at Essen in Westphalia, between 8,000 and 10,000 are 
employed. In Great Britain, like gigantic establishments abound. 



i 



ARE PROFITS AT THE MINIMUM? 353 

not look to see an increase of wages obtained from tliis 
source ? Much of what has been said relative to the 
asserted restoration to wages, of all sums whicli may go in 
excessive returns to capital, applies equally in the case of 
excessive profits, the remuneration of the man of business, 
tlie employer, the entrepreneur. It cannot safely be 
assumed that, to .use Prof. Cairnes' phrase,' covetousness 
be held in check by covetousness, inasmuch as luxurious- 
ness will inevitably enter to absorb a portion of such 
undue gains. But here still another reason appears, 
namely, that, as the part of the employer in production is 
active ; not abstinence, as in the case of the capitalist, but 
exertion ; in addition, then, to the effects of luxuriousness, 
excessive profits will, with no small proportion of employ- 
ers, allow the native propensity to indolence and ease of 
life to enter to take something from the zeal and enter- 
prise with which business is conducted. It is only the 
exceptionally ambitious and resolute who will wdiolly 
"withstand this propensity. So that when Prof. Perry 
says, " If, in the division between profits and wages, at 
the end of any industrial cycle, profits get more than their 
due share, these very profits will wish to become capital, 
and will thus become an extra demand for labor, and the 
next w^ages fund will be larger than the last," ^ I am 
obliged to take the exception that a portion of these 
profits, so far as Prof. Perry includes in that term the 
gains of the man of business, will wish to become fine 
horses and houses, fine clothes and opera boxes ; w^hile 
another portion will wish to take the form of coming to 
the office an hour later in the morning and going home 
an hour earlier in the afternoon. 

Hence, if we cannot safely assume that it is a matter of 
indifference to the wages class wdi ether a little more or less 
goes in profits to the employer, it becomes of importance 

' P. 338. 

a The Financier, August 1, 1874. 



254 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

to inquire whether there is any reason to believe that pro- 
tits are already at the niininuini. And as to this, one can 
have no hesitation in saying that the probabilities are 
strongly against such a supposition. The present average 
rate of profits, or annual aggregate of profits, has noto- 
riously been reached as the result of unequal competition, 
in which employers have been active, alert, and mobile, 
while laborers have been, in a great degree, ignorant and 
inert, resorting to the right market tardily, or mistakenly 
to the wrong market. It does not follow that because the 
laborers have lost heavily by this failure of competition, 
the employers have gained it all. Much has been lost 
to the laborers and to the world. Nowhere does the 
monopolist gain all that others lose by him. Yet the em- 
ploying class have profited, and still profit, greatly by this 
partial immobility of labor. The lowest price which any 
laborer M'ill receive for his services is no longer the highest 
j)rice which any emploj'er can afford to give. 

In the first part of this work, wlien treating of produc- 
tion, I had occasion to show that the wages of the laborer 
might be increased in several ways without diminishing 
profits, the explanation being that the laborer's efficiency 
Avill be increased proportionally or more than proportion- 
ally. In dealing with the problem of Distribution, the 
laborer's efficiency will be assumed constant, and I shall 
inquire what causes may operate to increase the laborer's 
share of the product, not the absolute amount of his wages. 

And, first, let it be noted that a gain might be efi'ected 
through a reduction in what may be called the cost of em- 
ployment, without involving any reduction in the aggre- 
gate profits of employers as a body. Let me illustrate: I 
was much struck at the complaints made at some of the 
meetings of agricultural laborers in England during the 
lockout of iST4, that many of the employers were hard- 
drinking men and poor farmers, and that if they attended 
more closely to their business and managed it better, they 



INCOMPETENT EMPLOYERS. 355 

could afford to pay higher wages. Now no one should 
lightly credit the complaints of angry men ; nor was there 
any reason to suppose that the farmers of the lockout sec- 
tion comprised more than the usual proportion of dissolute 
and negligent employers. What occurs to me as notice- 
able in this matter is the correctness with which these 
laborers apprehended the principle that when men who 
are unfit to conduct business force themselves into the 
employment of labor, it is at the expense of labor. The 
theory of competition assumes the intelligence and capacity 
of the employer to see and follow his own interests. ^ 
His doing this is (assuming the mobility of labor) to be 
the very means by which the laborer's interest is secured. 
If the employer fails in this requirement of intelligence 
and capacity, it may be not the better but the worse for 
the laborer. Bad business management is the heaviest 
possible tax on production, and while the incapable em- 
ployer gets little for himself, the laborer loses heavily in 
the rate or the regularit_y of his wages. 

Now, several causes may help to swell the proportion 
of incapable employers. Shilly-shally laws relating to 
insolvency do this ; fictitious currencj^ does this ; truck 
does this.^ Each of these causes enables men to escape 

* Errors in directing production are never oflFset one against another, 
as mistakes in computation so often are with a result of substantial 
accuracy. Whether the employer err in being too timid or too ven- 
turesome, loss is alike sustained, an injury is suffered which is with- 
out compensation. There is no balancing of one mistake against 
another in industry. 

It is needless to say that the employer is almost always either too 
timid or too venturesome. The perfect temper of business, we might 
suppose, is found in no living man. But the sterner the responsibility 
to which the employer is held, the more steady and severe the compe- 
tition to which he is subjected, the nearer will be the approach to this 
ideal, the less will be the waste in production due to mis-direction of 
the industrial force. 

^ The evidence before the Committee of 1854 brought out strongly 
this feature of the truck system ; that it was chiefly resorted to by 



256 TUB WAGES QUESTION. 

tlie conseqnoiices of incompetency, and to hang miserably 
on to business, where they are an obstruction and a 
nuisance, kwy thing which sliould decisively cut them 
off, and remit tliem to subordinate positions, would be a 
great gain to the laboring classes, and very likely, in the 
result, prove a real relief to themselves. Slavery, in like 
manner, enables men to control labor and direct produc- 
tion who never would become, on an equal scale, the 
employers of fi'ee labor ; and it is not more to the ineffi- 
ciency of the slave than to the incompetency of the 
master, that the unproductiveness of chattel labor is due. 

The lower the industrial quality of free labor, the more 
ignorant and inert the individual laborer, the lower may 
be the industrial quality of the men who can just sustain 
themselves in the position of employer. Men become the 
employers of cheap labor who M'onld never be the employ- 
ers of dear labor, and who ought not to be the employers 
of any sort of labor. The more active becomes the com- 
petition among the wages class, the more prompt their 
resort to market, the more persistent their demand for 
every possible increase of remuneration, the greater will 
be the pressure bronght to bear npon such employers to 
drop out of the place into which they have crowded them- 
selves at the cost of the general community, and where 
they have been able to maintain themselves only because 
the working classes have failed, through ignorance and 
inertness, to exact their full terms. 

But, secondly, a rise of wages due to a quickened com- 
petition on the part of the wages class, might be to a very 
great extent compensated by increased zeal, energy, and 

small and doubtful establishments which thus contrived to make up, 
by "sweating" the wages of their operatives, what they could not 
make in legitimate profits, and thus kept themselves alive. Indeed, 
the excuse most frequently urged by truck masters was that, but for 
gains thus realized, they would be obliged to give up business. It is 
needless to say that the sooner such employers are driven out, the 
better for the laboring class. 



EMPLOYERS ON THEIR METTLE. 257 

economy on the part-of the really able men of business. 
It does no man good to have much odds given him ; and 
the inertness of labor has always a mischievous effect even 
upon the best of the employing class. So far as the 
increasing demands of the laborer are due to his greater 
vigilance, activity, and social ambition, we may be pretty 
sure that these demands will be I'esponded to full}^ by the 
entrepreneur. Whether we consider business on its side 
of enterprise, or on its side of economy, we shall find that 
it does the manager no harm to be sharply followed up. 
Where large margins are afforded, there is likely to be 
much waste; and, on the other hand, no man does his 
best except when his best is required. "It was an axiom 
of the late Mr. John Kennedy, who was called the father 
of the cotton manufacture, that no manufacturing im- 
provements were ever made except on threadbare profits." 
Mr. Babbage, in his Economy of Manufactures,' has ^ 
shown that inventions and improvements in the mechan- 
ical arts have sometimes been healthfully stimulated by 
the goadings of industrial distress; and Mr. Chadwick has 
given an interesting exposition ^ of the manner in which 
the increasing pressure of competition lias served to pro- 
mote the commercial ventures which have successively 
widened the market for British manufactures. But surely 
we need no "modern instances" to establish a principle 
so old and familiar. The weighty words of Gibbon : " the 
spirit of monopolists is barren, lazy, and opj)ressive," ^ 
apply to all production in just the degree in which com- 
petition is defeated or deferred, whether by the, force of 
law, or by the ignorance and inertness of the laboring 
classes. 

Perhaps as good an illustration as could be given of the 
effects of increased competition in winnowing the employ- 
ing class of its least efficient members, and stimulating 

» P. 294. 2 Statistical Journal., xxviii. 3-5. 



258 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

the enterprise and the economy of tliose who survive the 
process, is afforded by the course of English agriculture 
since the repeal of the Coi'n Laws, a measure which the 
landed interest believed at the time would be absolutely 
fatal, and which, indeed, would have ruined that interest 
but for the saving virtue of the forces here invoked. Yet 
English agriculture never stood on a better foundation 
than to-day : the gains of the farmer probably were never 
larger through an equal term of years. The reason is 
that the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the opening of 
English markets to the bread-stuffs of the world, put tlie 
agricultural interest on its mettle ; the farmei'S found that 
they must abandon the old clumsy and wasteful ways ; 
break up the old clumsy and wasteful machinery ; pay 
higher wages for better work ; breed only from the choicest 
stock ; make improvements in every process of cultivation, 
from selecting the seed to garnering the grain ; find some 
chance for saving, every day, from harvest round to har- 
vest again, and that, too, without pinching nseful expend- 
itures. These things the farmers of England had to do, 
and consequently did them. The less energetic and 
thrifty, one by one, dropped out of a contest so severe and 
unremitting ; those who survived studied their business 
as never before, scanned their expenses as men do who 
have small margin for waste, brought the latest results of 
chemical and physiological science into their selection of 
crops and of breeding animals, made a business, and not a 
drinking bout, of the annual fair, set np agricultural clubs, 
compared notes among themselves, and read Mr. Caird's 
letters in the Tirnes. 

But, thirdly, a rise of wages due to a quickened compe- 
tition on the part of the wages class become more intelli- 
gent, frugal, and self-assertive, should it proceed so far, 
after exhausting the two resources already named, as to 
cut into the profits of tlie employing class, as a whole, 
would bring a partial compensation in the increased dig- 



I 
i 



EMPLOYERS PARTLY PAID IN HONOR. 259 

nity and the heightened intellectual gratification attend- 
ing the conduct of business and the control of labor, under 
such a condition. I have said, in a previous chapter, that 
the pride of directing great operations, and the sense of 
power in moving masses of men at will, could not, at 
present at least, be relied upon, primarily or principally, 
as furnishing the motive to production on the part of tlie 
employing class. And yet we know these do enter, in no 
inconsiderable degree, to make up the remuneration of 
the entrepreneur. It is true that but a small portion of 
the human race are much alive to these feelings, but it 
is also true that the men of the entrepreneur stamp are 
just those of all in the world to respond to such im- 
pulses.^ 

We have a very pleasant and instructive picture, by 
Ml'. Gould in his report to the British government in 
18T2, of the relations existing between the employer and 
the laborer in Switzerland. No country has achieved 
industrial success under heavier disadvantages. No conti- 
nental country has developed a higher order of business 
managers. The Swiss employers maintain themselves 
against a severe and unremitting competition only by the 
constant exercise of all the industrial virtues. But the 
Swiss laborers are politically and socially their equals. 
The employer has no feeling of degradation in the contact : 
the laborer no feeling of inferiority. Perfect democracy 
and universal education have cast out all notions of that 
sort as between free Switzers. Hence the employers of 
labor of every class, even such as are wealthy, are found 
in general among their men, not to be distinguished from 

* "As, even wlien relieved from the pressure of necessity, tlie 
large-brained Europeans voluntarily enter on enterprises or activities 
"wliicli the savage could not keep up, even to satisfy urgent wants ; 
so their larger brained descendants will, in a still higher degree, find 
their gratification in careers entailing still greater mental expendi- 
tures." — H. Spencer, Principles of Biology, II. 520. 



260 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

them in appearance, and taking hold freely with them at 
any part of the work, as occasion serves.^ 

I cannot but believe that, as the working classes advance 
in individual and mutual intelligence, and push their em- 
ployers closer with a more searching and vital competition, 
more and more will the reward of the employer come to 
consist of the zest of intellectual activity, the joys of 
creative energy, the honor of directing affairs, and the 
social distinctions of mastership. 

For after all, it must be remembered that the employ- 
ment of labor is an occupation, as truly as is manual labor 
itself; and that the body of employers must continue to 
employ labor, or find other ways and means to live. To 
assume that employers generally are going to leave busi- 
ness on account of a reduction of profits, would be more 
sensible if it were shown that they would also leave the 
world on that account. Not a little of the reasoning in 
books as to what employers will do, or capitalists will do, 
or laborers will do, if something happens which they can- 
not be expected to like, practically assumes that men have 
a choice whether they will be born into this world or not ; 
and that, once in it, if they are not satisfied, they have at 
hand one or more eligible spheres into which thej'' can 
pass, easily and gracefully, with a perfect assurance of 
welcome; and tiiat indeed they will be quite likely to do 
so, unless treated with distinguished consideration here. 

> Mr. Gould's Report, p. 346. Mr. Bonar reported in 1870: "In 
enumerating tlie highly favorable circumstances in which the Swiss 
working man is placed, prominence must be given to the immense 
extension of the principle of democracy, whicli, whatever may be its 
defects and dangers from a political point of view, when pushed to 
extremes, serves in Switzerland, in its economical effects, to advance 
the cause of the operative, by removing the barriers dividing class 
from class, and to establish among all grades the bonds of mutual 
sympathy and good will." — Report, p. 271. Coxe, in his travels in 
Switzerland during the last century, notes the frank, courteous as- 
sumption of absolute equality on the part of the Swiss peasantry.— 
(Pinkertou, V. 657). 



THE EMPLOYING CLASS. 261 

Whereas, the most of us, in this world, do, not what we 
would like, but what we must, or the best we can ; and I 
entertain no manner of doubt that long after profits should 
be forced down, if that were to happen, below what might 
be deemed an equitable rate, the superior men of every 
country, the men of thought, of prudence, and of natural 
command, would be found directing and animating the 
movements of industij*. 



(IIAI'IM-.K .\V 

CtHU-KUATlON : (HClTlNd UID iM-' Til 10 ICMl'HU'INO CLASS. 

In its iirst aiul lar^ji^ost sonso, CDoporntion si^ijjniHos tho 
union in jinHlnctinn of iliilorcnt ]nM'.-^(^n^^, it n>nv ho of 
dilVeront cImssos of ]t(M'!>ons, aiul it iii.iy he on the most 
unoqiml toi-ius. In this 8onst>, coopciMtitMi is conipatihlc 
with tlio snhonlinntion of tho oiujtlDvcd to thi' oniph>vor, 
nrul with tlio oxistonco (»f intlustrial " priui-ipalities and 
powoi's." In tlio sonso wliich h:is Uvcn niado of lat(> vcvirs 
so popuhir, and in whit-h ah>iu' it w ill ho nsoil in this 
troatist>, coi'iporation means imioii in j^rothirtiiMi, npon 
Oipial ti'i'ins. It is doiuori';U'_v intrcchu-tMl into lahor. 

It is as wo tiuMi from discMk^sini^; tho indtistrial oharactor 
of tho onipUn'ini;" olass, that wo caji most advantai»voiisly 
oonsidov tho si'hoines pi\t]H>st'il, nudoi- tho titio ot" o(»iipora- 
tion, for tho nnu'lioi'atii>n ol' tho oondition ol" tlio waijos 
cdass; and, at tho san\o tinu>, it is as wi^ try to iind tho 
real si^nilloanco of tlioso soluMiios tliat wo roalizo most 
t'nlly tho oonfnsion inti»diu-od into tho thoory o\' distrihii- 
tion by tho faihiro to disi-riminato tho ontropronour-funo- 
tion, and by tho nndno o\tonsi(m o( tho word pi'otits. In 
\\\y opinion, it is simply not p(>ssihU^ to i;ivo an intolliy'ihlo 
aec'onnt of oooj^oration tl>rt>nt!,h tlio nso of tho dollnitions 
by tho text-book writers. If wl\rtt we have ealled tlio 
profits of business are only '* tho wages of snporvision and 
n\anagemcnt," what is it that ooi>peration aims to elloct ? 
Snporvisi«>n and management nnist still bo exereised, or 
cooperation will come to a very speedy end. If super- 



coo I 'inn A I'lOM. 203 

vision and inana^einont are to bo exercised, it must ije by 
some one, and if the [n'esent supervisors and mana;(ers 
(the eni[>h»yerH, as I call them) are to be turned Jidrlft or 
reduced to tiie ranks, then tliese duties will have to be 
performed by men now taking some other part in indus- 
try, and to tiiem " tlie wages of supervision and manage- ^ 
ment" will be paid. Wlierein have the workmen gained 
anything ? It is fairly to be presumed that these peculiar 
and diflicult duties will not be performed any better by 
men chosen l^y caucus and ballot, than by men selected 
through the stern processes of unremitting business com- 
petition. 

If the wages of supervision and management are to be 
paid, in manner and in amount, as heretofore, to super- 
visors and managers chosen by the workmen themselves, 
we can readily understand that the pride of the workmen 
may be gratified (whether that will tend to make them 
more easily supervised and managed, is a question we 
need not anticipate); but wherein is the economical advan- 
tage? If it is said, wages are not to be paid to the super- 
visors and managers, under the cooperative system, equal 
to those paid under the existing industrial organization, 
while yet the work is done as well, what does this amount 
to but a confession that the sums now received by the 
employers are not wages, but something more than, and 
different from, wages; the difference in amount represent- 
ing the power given to the employer by his industrial 
position to wrest an undue share of tlio products of in- 
dustry ? 

To repeat: if, under the cooperative system, the work 
of "sujjervision and management" is to be done by a new 
set of men for the same " wages," the workmen will gain 
nothing; if, on the other hand, the workmen, controlling 
the operations .of industry for themselves, can get the 
work done for less (and the great promises hold out as to 
the benefits of cooperation would imply that it must be 



264 THE WAOKS QUESTION. 

for very much less), then it must be concluded that em- 
})lojer8 at present receive something more than and differ- 
ent from wages. 

But if we find it difficult to conceive what account one 
could give of cooperation, using the definitions of the 
text-hooks, we find that, if we stand aside and allow the 
textbook writers to state it in their own way, the result is 
not a whit the more happy. Prof. Cairnes, so highly dis- 
tinguislied for his justness and clearness of reasoning, 
stumbles, at the ver}'' threshold of the subject, across an 
obstacle of his own devising. Thus in the very act of 
bringing forward the scheme of cooperation as a cure for 
the industrial ills of society, he makes a statement of 
cooperation which reduces it to a nullity: "It appears to 
me that the condition of any substantial improvement of a 
permanent kind in the laborer's lot is that the separation 
of industrial chisses into laborers and capitalists shall not 
be maintained ; that the laborer shall cease to be a mere 
laborer — in a word, that projits shall be brought to reen- 
force the wages fundT ^ And again, more tersely : " The 
characteristic feature of cooperation, looked at from the 
economic point of view, is that it combines in the same 
person the two capacities of laborer and capitalist.''^ ' 
This needs but tt) be looked at a moment to reveal its 
uttei- fallacy. Keniember, this is not the declaration of an 
irresponsible philanthropist that every workman ought to 
have a palace and a coach, but the grave statement of an 
accountable economist as to the manner in which the wel- 1 
fare of the working class may, under economical condi- 

' " Some Leading Principles," etc., p. 339. 

" " Essays on Political Economy." How singularly unfortunate 
this would be as a definition, even were Prof. Cairnes not mistaken in 
his general view of cooperation, will bo seen when we say that the 
above would be a very good description of a peasant proprietor, or 
small .'\merican farmer. He "combines in the same person the two 
capacities of laborer and capitalist." Is he a coiiperator? 



OETTING RID OF THE ENTBEPBENEUB. 265 

tions, be advanced. What is this industrial panacea ? 
Why, the laborers are to become capitalists. A most, 
felicitous result truly ; but how is it to be accomplished ? 
By saving their own earnings ? But this they can and do 
accomplish at present ; and, through the medium of the 
bank of savings, they may and do lend their money in 
vast amounts to the employing class (oftentimes to their 
individual employers), and thus, under the present system 
profits (in Prof. Cairnes' sense) may be and are " brought 
to reenforce " wages. Is it, then, by saving somebody 
else's earnings, and bringing the profits thereof to " reen- 
force the wages fund " ? But this is spoliation, confiscation, 
a resort which no one would be before Prof. Cairnes in 
denouncing, and whose disastrous consequences to the 
laborers themselves no one could more forcibly portray. 

We see, therefore, that Prof Cairnes' statement is a 
form utterly without content. Cooperation is to be an 
admirable thing, because in coopei'ation the workmen are 
to be both laborers and capitalists. But if we inquire 
how they are to become capitalists, otherwise than at 
present, we fail to find an answer. 

No ! Cooperation, considered as a question in the dis- 
tribution of wealth, is nothing more or less than getting 
rid of the employer, the entrepreneur, the middleman. 
It does not get rid of the capitalist. In modern industrial 
society, that society which Prof. Cairnes is contemplating 
when he finds the condition of the workman hard and 
requiring relief, there are three functions, not two merely ; 
and the reform to be effected through cooperation, if 
indeed cooperation be practicable, is by combining in the 
same person, not the labor function and the capital func- 
tion, but the labor function and the entrepreneur function. 



What then is the attitude of laborers in cooperation ? 
To the employer they say : You have performed an im- 



266 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

portant part in production, and you have performed it 
well ; but you are now relieved. You have charged too 
liigli for your services. Your annual profits, taking good 
years and bad together, are greater than we need to pay 
to get the work done, if we will take the responsibilities 
of business on ourselves, and exercise a forethought, 
patience, and pains we have had no call to exercise while 
you were in charge. Up to this time the state of the case 
has been this : 

1. A product, varying with seasons and circumstances 
multifarious. 

2. Our wages, fixed ; you making yourself responsible 
for their payment, whatever be the character of the season 
or the state of the market, yourself receiving nothing till 
we are paid. 

3. From a variable quantity deducting a fixed quantity 
leaves a variable remainder, viz., your profits fluctuating 
with good or bad fortune, good or bad management. 

Hereafter the state of the case will be : 

1. A product, variable, so long as the laws of nature 
remain the same. 

2. A fixed salary paid to a manager whom we select, 
and to whom we make ourselves responsible with what- 
ever we possess, meanwhile receiving nothing till he is 
paid. 

3. From a variable quantity deducting a certain quan- 
tity leaves a variable result : our earnings, no longer 
called wages, greater in good years, smaller in bad years ; 
greater as we labor with zeal and conduct our business 
with discretion, smaller as we fail in either respect. 

One word more before we part. "We intend no dis- 
respect. With woi'kmen who are ignorant, dissolute, un- 
willing to subordinate the present to the future, incapable 
of organization, such services as you are qualified to render 
are absolutely indispensable ; and we M'ill not say that 
such remuneration as you exact is excessive. But we pro- 



NATURE OF CO-OPERATION. 267- 

fess better things. We are prepared to exercise patience, 
industry, economy, and to subject our individual desires 
to the general will, for the sake of dividing among our- 
selves the profits you have been accustomed to make out 
of us.^ We know it will be hard ; but we believe it can 
be done. If men are not lit for an industrial republic, 
then they must submit to the despot of industry, and they 
have no right to complain of Civil List and Privy Purse. 
But M^e are republicans, cheerfully accepting all the re- 
sponsibilities of freedom, and boldly laying claim to all its 
privileges. 

This is, in effect, what the laborers, by cooperation, say 
to the entrepreneur. Do they give the capitalist his 
conge after the same fashion ? Do they assert independ- 
ence of him, and ability to go along without him ? Not 
in the least. Not a word of it. Cooperation is not going 
to rid them of dependence on capital. They are to be 
just as dependent on the capitalist as were their employers 
whose place they aspire to till. They know that they 
must have just as much and just as good machinery, just 
as abundant and good materials, as competing establish- 
ments under entrepreneur management. So far as they 
themselves have capital, the results of their savings out of 
past M-ages, they will employ these and receive the returns 
therefrom directly, instead of lending it to the entrepre- 
neur through the savings bank and getting interest there- 
for. So far as they want capital for their operations over 
what they can scrape togethei', they must go to the banks or 
to private lenders, and pay as high a price for its use as 
their quondam employer was wont to do ; indeed, for 

* "A scheme . . . by which the laborer can unite tlie functions 
and earn the wages of laborer and employer by superseding the neces- 
sity of using the services of the latter functionary ." — Prof. Rogers, Pol. 
Econ., 108. This is a strictly accurate, and but for the regretable use 
of the word wages, would be a felicitous, statement of the design of 
cooperation. 



268 TEE WAGES QUESTION. 

awhile at least, probably a higher price, as their credit 
will not be likely to be so good at first as his. And if 
cooperation should start earliest, and make most progress, 
in those industries where the amount of capital required 
is comparatively small, this Avould be but a recognition of 
the fact that cooperation has no tendency to free the labor- 
ing class from any domination of capital, of which com- 
plaint may have been made, but that its sole object is to 
Get Hid of the Entrepreneur. 

Such being, as I apprehend it, the true nature of coop- 
eration, let us inquire as to the advantages which may be 
anticipated from it, if accomplished ; as to the obstacles to 
be encountered by it ; and as to the probability of its 
success in any such measure as to afford an appreciable 
relief from the peculiar hardships of the wages class. Let 
it be remembered that it is the question of wages, and not 
the question of labor, which cooperation aims to solve. 
The welfare of labor depends on the laws of production, 
under the rule of diminishing returns, taken in connection 
with the laws of population. The question of wages is a 
question in the distribution of wealth, and arises out of 
the dependence of a portion of the laboring population 
upon the entrepreneur-class for employment. 

What, then, might we fairly look to cooperation to 
accomplish ? 

Considering the scheme from the laborer's point of view, 
we say : 

First, to reap the profits of the entrepreneur, which 
are verj'- large,^ large enough if divided among the wages 



1 " Double interest is, in Great Britain, reckoned wliat the mer- 
chants call a good, moderate, reasonable profit." Adam SmitJi 1, 103. 

Sir Arch. Alison gives as an argument against what would practically 
be cooperation, that the profits if divided among the laborers, " would 
not make an addition to them of more than thirty or forty per cent " 
— {Hist. Europe, xxii, 237.) " Profits " here include both the returns 
of capital and the gains of the middleman. Prof. Senior says; "it 



ABVAHTTAGES OF CO-OPERATION. 269 

class to make a substantial addition to their means of sub- 
sistence. 

Second : to secure employment independently of the 
will of the " middle man." It has been shown in a pre- 
vious chapter, that the interest which the employer has in 
production is found in the balance of profit left after the 
payment of wages. The payment of these, perhaps to 
the extent of ten, twenty, or fifty times his profit, is to him 
merely a necessary means to that end. It may be, as has 
been said, that his relations to a body of customers shall 
be such as to induce him to continue producing even 
though, for a time, he sinks his own profit. After the 
efi'ect of this has been exhausted, however, and it is soon 
exhausted, he will pay wages only to get a profit. But 
the condition of the market will often be such as to ren- 
der him exceedingly doubtful of his profit, or even appre- 
hensive of a loss ; and then his whole interest in produc- 
tion ceases. Because he can not see his way to make ten 
or five thousand dollars profit, he is ready to stop a pro- 
duction, the agencies and instrumentalities of which are 
wholly at his command, which involves the payment of 
one or two hundred thousand dollars in wages. Now, 
with reference to such an oft recurring condition of in- 
dustry, a body of workmen may properly say that, 
wdiile they cannot blame the employer /or refusing to risk 
the payment of such large amounts in wages to them, 
without a reasonable assurance of getting it back, with a 

may be laid down generally, that in no country have profits continued 

for any considerable period at the average rate of fifty per cent per 

annum." {Pol. Econ., p. 140.) 

Mr. Pardy estimates the division of the annual product of the land 

of England and Wales as follows : 

Landlord's share (returns of capital) £42,955,963 

Farmer's share (profits) 21,477,981 

Laborer's share (wages) 39,768 156 

£104,200,100 ,/ 
[^Statistical Journal xxiv, 358.J 



270 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

profit, in the price of the goods, yet the}' are raucli dis- 
posed to take the responsibility of production upon them- 
selves. Thus, especially in branches of manufacture 
where the value of the materials bears a small proportion 
to the value of the finished goods, they might propose to 
go on producing moderatel}' in spite of the most unfavora- 
ble aspect of the market, on the ground that they might 
just as well be laboring as lying idle, and sell the product 
for what it would bring. All they should thus receive 
would be clear gain, as against a period of enforced idle- 
ness, and it might not infrequently happen that, on settling 
up their venture, they would find a turn ia the market 
giving them a compensation as large or nearly as large as 
usual. 

But it may be asked why should iiot the employer in 
times of business depression, agree with his workmen to 
pay them whatever he should find in the result he could 
afford. But this would be cooperation, slightly disguised. 
The essence of wages is that they are stipulated before- 
hand : the essence of profits is that they are, as DeQuinccy 
calls them, "the leavings of wages," and therefoi-e vary 
as the product varies under the varying conditions of 
industry, natural or artificial. It is of the essence of the 
relation of employer and employed, that the employer 
secures to the employed their wages, and after that, 
appropriates his own remuneration. Were the employed 
to consent to give the employer his profit first, and take 
their wages afterwards, their relations would merely be 
reversed. Five hundred mill hands entering into this 
arrangemeijt would become a body of cooperative produ- 
cers ; the so-called manufacturer would become simply 
their paid manager, their hired man. 

It is true that arrangements for a ''sliding scale" of 
wages, adapted to the market price of the product, are 
sometimes entered into in coal and iron mining ; but these 
cover only a portion of the ground embraced in the 



ADVANTAGES OF CO-OPERATION. 271 

cooperative plan, as the cost of materials and transporta- 
tion, rent, interest, and the general expenses of business 
management, may vary so greatly as very much to reduce, 
and at times to destroy, the employer's expectations of 
profit, in spite of the sliding scale of wages. 

Such, as we understand the matter, are the two econom- 
ical advantages for which the wages class look to coopera- 
tion. There is still another advantage, non-economical 
and therefore not in our province, namely, the getting rid 
of the feeling of dependence and the securing of a higher 
social standing. 

In addition to the advantages which the wages class 
have generally in contemplation when plans of coopera- 
tion are proposed, the political economist sees three advan- 
tages of high importance which would result from this 
system if fairly established. 

First : cooperation would, by the very terms of it, / 
obviate strikes. The employer being abolished, the work- 
men being now self-employed, these destructive contests 
would cease. The industrial " non-ego" disappearing, the 
industrial egotism which precipitates strikes wotild dis- 
appear also. Second: the workman would be stimulated 
to greater industry and greater carefulness. He would 
work more and waste less, for, under the cooperative 
system, he would receive a direct, instant, and certain 
advantage from his own increased carefulness and labori- 
ousness. It is true that the pressure thus brought to bear 
upon the individual laborer is not so great as in the case 
of the individual proprietor of land, since there the gain is 
all his own, while here the workman has to divide with 
his fellow-cooperators the advantages of his own extra 
exertions, looking, though not with absolute assurance, to 
receive an equivalent from each of them in turn. Third : 
the workman would be incited to frugality. He has at 
once furnished him the best possible opportunity for in- 
vesting his savings, namely, in materials and implements . 



273 TUE WAGES QUESTION. 

whieli he is himself to use in hibor. Especially in the 
early days of cooperative industry, when the great need of 
cooperators is capital, will this pressure be felt, constrain- 
ing the M'orknian to invest in his trade all of his earnings 
that can be spared from necessary subsistence. Capital 
thus saved and thus invested is likely to be eared for and 
used to the best ability of the cooperators. They will 
make the most of it, for it will have cost them dear. 

The additional considerations that cooperation tends to 
improve the moral, social, and political character of the 
workman, by giving him a larger stake in society, making 
liis remuneration depend more directly on his own con- 
duct, and allowing him to participate in the deliberations 
and decisions of industry : these considerations, being 
non-economical, belong to the statesman and the moralist. 



Here are several disthict advantages, not fanciful but 
real and unquestionable, which together make up an argu- 
ment for cooperation which is simply' unanswerable and 
overwhelming, unless there is validity in our theory of 
the character and functions of the employing class. 

In spite of these marked advantages, however, we have 
to note that cooperation in mechanical industry has 
achieved a very slight and even doubtful success. Mr. 
I^rederick Harrison has called attention in the Fortnightly 
Review ^ to the fact that the vast majority of all the 
cooperative establishments maintained in England are 
^ simply stores, i. e. shops, "for the sale of food and some- 

times clothing." " These, of course, cannot affect the con- 
dition of industry materially. Labor here does not in any 
sense share in the produce with capital. The relation of 
emplo^'cr and employed remains just the same, and not a 
single workman would chany-e the conditions of his em- 

» Fortnightly Review, III., 4S3. 



SMALL SUCCESS OF COOPERATION. 273 

ployment if the store were to extinguish all the shops of 
a town." 

The indnstrial cooperative societies, Mr. Harrison con- 
tinues, are mainly flour mills and cotton mills. The flour 
mills cliiefly supply members, though they often employ 
persons unconnected with the society, at ordinary market 
wages, and on the usual terms. Thev are joint-stock 
companies, for a specific purpose, like gas or railway com- 
panies. The only true instances of mannfacturing coop- 
erative societies of any importance are the cotton mills. 
" Some of the mills never got to work at all ; some took 
the simple form of joint-stock companies in few hands ; 
others passed into the hands of small capitalists, or the 
shares were concentrated among the promoters. In fact, 
there is now, I believe, no cooperative cotton mill, owned 
by working men, in actual operation, on any scale, with 
the notable exception of Rochdale. . . . Here and 
there, an association of bootmakers, hatters, painters, or 
gilders, is carried on, upon a small scale, with varying 
success. . . . But small bodies of handicraftsmen (or 
rather artists), working in common, with moderate capital, 
plant and premises, obviously establisli nothing." 

This is certainly a discouraging account to come from a 
labor-champion, at the end of thirty years of eflbrt, and 
after the inauguration of so many hopeful enterprises 
which have enjoyed an amount of gratuitous advertise- 
ment, from philanthropic journals and sanguine econo- 
mists, M^hich would have sufficed to sell a hundred millions 
of railroad bonds, or make the fortunes of a hundred 
manufacturing establishments. 

A later writer gives a not more encouraging picture : 
" A large proportion of all cooperative societies are dealers 
in food, provisions, and articles of clothing, consumed 
chiefly by themselves and families. Others, but in a small 
ratio, are manufacturers of flax, spinners of cotton or wool, 
and manufacturers of shoes, etc. But very few of them 



iX 



274 THE WAGES QUESTION 

succeed ; and the failures are to be found chiefly in these 
attempts at production." ^ 

The same tale comes from France, where these enter- 
prises were inaugurated during the revolutionary period 
of 1848. M. Dncarre's report of 1875, from the Commis- 
sion on Wages and the Eelations between Workmen and 
their Employers, claims even less success for cooperative 
production in that counti-y than is reported in England 
and Gernumy." 

In Switzerland, the nui-sery of accomplished artisans, 
whose citizens are trained in self-government more per- 
fectly thau those of any other country in the w^orld, we 
And, at the latest date for which the facts are given,^ only 
thirteen small cooperative societies of production. In 
these inconsiderable results, if not failure, of cooperative 
manufacturing, we And the most striking testimony that 
could be given to the importance of the entrepreneur- 
function in modern industry. Small groups of highly 
skilled artisans — artists, Mr. Harrison would call them — 
carefully selected, using inexpensive materials and small 
"plant,"' and working for a market^ close at hand, per- 
haps for customers personally known, may achieve success 
by the exercise of no impossible patience and pains. But 
where laborers of very various qualifications, of all ages 
and both sexes, are to be brought together in industries 

' Social Science Transactions, 1871, p. 585. 

* " Les societes cooperatives n'ont pas eu jusqu'a ce jour en France 
le succes qu'elles ont obtenu, soit en Angleterre, soit en Allemague. 
. . . En France, les societes de production n'existent qu'il I'etat de 
niinimes exceptions " — pp. 264-5. 

' Report of Mr. Gould, on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 
1872, p. 355. 

* " Pour la petite Industrie, les placements sont en quelque sorte 
assures ; le marclie est la sous les yeux du producteur, il en peut a 
cliaque instant consulter les besoins, il reconnait a des signes certains 
I'engorgement et la pletliore, aussi bien que I'iusnffisance et la disette." 
— Blauqui (aiue), Cours d'Economie Industrielle, II., G2. 



DIFFICULTIES OF COOPERATION. 275 

which involve a great many processes requiring diifering 
degrees of strength and skill, and which produce goods 
for distant, and perhaps, at the time of production, 
unknown markets, we see as yet scarcely a sign of the 
services of the employer being dispensed with. What, 
then, is the reason for this comparative failure of indus- 
trial cooperation ? I answer, the difficulty of effecting 
cooperation on a large scale is directly as its desirableness. 
It is solely because of the importance of the entrepreneur- 
function that the employing class are enabled to realize 
those large profits which so naturally and properly excite 
the desires of the wages class ; and it is for preciselj' the 
same reason that it is found so difficult to get rid of the 
employing class. 

The qualities of the successful entrepreneur are rare. i-^ 
"We need only to look around us, within the most limited 
field, and for the shortest time, to see how vast a differ- 
ence is made by the able, as, contrasted with the merely 
common-place, not to say bad, conduct of business ; and 
how great losses may be incurred by the failure to realize 
all the conditions of purchase, production, and sale. And 
the more extensively markets are opened by the removal 
of commercial I'estrictions, the more intense competition 
becomes under the opportunities of frequent communica- 
tion and rapid transportation, the richer the prizes, the 
heavier the penalties, of the entrepreneur; the wider the 
breach between the able and the commonplace manage- 
ment of business. In these days, a person who should, 
upon the strength of respectable general abilities, under- 
take a branch of manufacture to which he had not been 
trained, and in which he had not long been exercised in 
subordinate positions, would run a serious risk of sinking 
a large part of his capital in a few years, it might be in a 
few months ; and this, without any great catastrophe in 
trade, or any flagrant instance of misconduct in the opera- 

14* 



-A 



276 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

tions undertaken. Simply not to do well is generally, in 
production, to do very ill. 

It is, of course, hard for workmen to see such large 
amounts taken out of the product to remunerate the 
entrepreneur, leaving so much the less to be divided 
among themselves; and the ambition which leads them to 
attempt to earn these profits by undertaking this part in 
industry, is wholly honorable and commendable. But it 
is clear that it is a great deal better, even for the work- 
men, that this heavy tax should be paid to the entrepre- 
neur, than that production should be carried on without 
the highest skill, efficienc}-, and enei-gy. The proof is 
that, as a rule almost without exception, those employers 
who make the highest profits are the emploj'ers who, 
when regularity of employment is taken into account, as 
it ought to be, pay the highest wages. Business must be 
well conducted, no matter how much is paid for it: that 
is the first condition of modern industrial life. The ques- 
tion who shall conduct it, must, even in the interest of the 
working classes, be secondary and subordinate. 

Is it asked, why ma}^ not the men who have the knowl- 
edge, skill, and experience requisite for the conduct of 
business, be employed as agents of eooperators, receiving 
wages for their services ? In the first place, I answer, 
the same men cannot conduct the same business as well 
for others as for themselves. You might as well expect 
the bow to send the arrow as far when unbent as when 
bent. The knowledge that he will gain what is gained ; 
that he will lose what is lost, is essential to the temper of 
the man of business. No matter how faithfully disposed, 
he simply cannot meet the exigencies and make the 
choices of purchase, production, and sale, if the gain or 
the loss is to be another's, with the same spirit as if the 
gain or the loss were to be all his own. That alertness 
and activity of mind, that perfect mingling of caution and 
audacity, those unaccountable suggestions of possibilities, 



DIFFICULTIES OF COOPERATION. 377 

opportunities, and contingencies, which, at least, make 
the difference between great and merely moderate success, 
are not to be had at a salary.* 

Yet I do not claim that the effect of this would extend 
so far as to neutralize all the great advantages^ of coopera- 
tion. If a body of workmen possessed the faith and 
patience necessary to carry them through tlie period of 
outlay and experiment, if they had the good judgment to 
select the best manager t\\ey could find, the good sense 
to pay him enough to keep him solidly attached to them, 
and the good humor to support hira heartily, submit 
promptly to his decisions, and remain harmonious among 
themselves, cooperation might become a triumphant suc- 
cess with them. But let us see liow much all this 
demands from poor human nature. 

In the first place, there is the all-important choice of a 
manager. Not to dwell on the danger of a body of work- 
men mistaking presumption for a true self-confidence, a 
brave show of information for thorough knowledge, an 
affected brusqueness for decision of character; or being 
led away by the plausibility and popular acts of a candi- 
date, we have the almost certainty that such a body would, 
in the result, lose the best man, if not by turns every 
competent man, through indisposition to pay a sufficient 
salary. In his address before the Cooperative Congress 
already cpioted, Mr. Thomas Brassey asked : " Where shall 
we find cooperative shareholders ready to give £5,000 a 
year for a competent manager ? And yet the sum I have 

^ "It is impossible to hire commercial genius, or tlie instincts of a 
skilful trader." — Fred'k Harrison, Fortnightly Review, III, 492. 

^ " I am confident that the manual operations will be skilfully and 
probably more diligently performed in a cooperative establishment. 
The personal interests of the workmen will be so directly advanced 
by their application aiad perseverance that they will naturally work 
hard. But their best efforts will fail to ensure a satisfactory result, 
unless the general organization is perfect also." — Mr. Brassey, at Hali- 
fax. The Times' Report. 



iT 



278 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

named is sometimes readily paid by private employers to 
an able lieutenant." ^ But it is not merely an able lieu- 
J tenant, but a "captain of industry," that cooperators must 
secure, if they are to conduct purchase, production, and 
sale in competition with establishments under individual 
control. Can we imagine such a body paying $50,000 a 
year to a manager, when they I'eceive on an average not 
more than $500 themselves ? Would not jealousy of such 
high wages sooner or later, in one way or another, over- 
come their sense of their own interest 1 Even if we sup- 
pose them intellectually convinced of the expediency, 
upon general principles, of paying largely for good service, 
will they not be found calculating that for this particular 
manager this particular sum is altogether too much, or, 
without any disparagement of his merits, experimenting 
to see how much they can " cut him down " without driv- 
ing him off, an experiment always dangerous, always 
breeding ill-feeling, and preparing the way for a separa- 
tion. For why should the man who has the skill and 
knowledge necessary to conduct business on his own 
account be content to remain on a salary greatly below 
the amount he might fairly expect to earn for himself ? 
Is it said his salary is regular and his profits always more 
or less uncertain ? But the men of the temper to condnct 
business are not generally timid men or self-distrustful ; 
they like responsibility and the exercise of authorit}^ — it 
is a part of their pay. Nor are they averse to a risk well 
taken ; it braces them up and makes the game exciting. 
Is it said that want of capital may constrain some of the 
best men to seek employment at the hand of such associa- 
tions ? This is true, in a degree, and here is one of the 
possibilities of cooperation. Yet if a man have the real 
stuff in him, want of capital is not likely long to keep him 
under. The history of modern industry teaches that. 

* The Times' Report. 



DIFFICULTIES OF COOPERATION. 279 

Getting into business in the most humble way, the mer- 
chants from whom lie buys his materials, those to whom 
he sells his products, and the bankers to whom he resorts 
with his modest note,^ all soon take his measure, and when 
they have taken his measure they give him room. Genius 
will have its appointed course : antagonism and adversity 
only incite, inspire, instruct. 

We have thus far spoken only of those diflSculties of 
co5peration which attend the selection and retention of 
able raanasers. On the difficulties to which this is but an. 
introduction, arising out of the tendency to intrigue which 
exists in all numerous bodies, and the disposition to 
meddlesomeness on the part of committees or boards of 
directors,^ I need not dwell. A sufficient lively impres- 
sion of them is likely to be created by the merest mention. 
I will only further refer to . an embarrassment which 
attends the extension of the cooperative plan to all 
branches of manufacture which employ laborers of very 
different degrees of industrial efficiency. Thus, in a cot- 
ton or woolen mill are to be found persons of both sexes 
and of all ages, earning under the present system from a 
few pence up to as many shillings a day. Under the 
cooperative plan, how is the scale of prices to be fixed ? 
To say that all should be paid alike would be monstrous, 
impossible. It would be grossly unjust, and would be 
quite sufficient to wreck tlie enterprise from the start.^ 

' My honored fatlier lias told me of the discussion once held over a 
note for $250, offered at the bank of which he was a director, signed 
with the then unknown name of James M. Beebe. 

^ Mr. Thornton (On Labor, p. 441) argues that while societies of 
workingmen may be unable to administer their affairs directly, they 
may be competent, like political societies, " to provide for their own 
government." 'J'o the contrary, Mr. Harrison urges (Fortnightly 
Keview, III., 493) that " he who is unfit to manage, is unfit to direct 
the manager." 

^ Mr. Babbage has shown (Econ. of Manufactures, p. 172-183) that 
the earnings of persons employed in the production of pins, in his day. 



/ 



280 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

But if the laborers are to be paid at different rates, wlio, 
I ask again, is to determine the proportions in which the 
product shall be divided ? How is general consent to be 
obtained to a scheme which must condemn the sfi'eat 
majority to receive but a contemptible fraction of their 
proportional share ? Without general consent, what 
chance of harmonious action ? But if we suppose the 
scale of distribution to be fixed, who is to assign the j?6r- 
sonnel of the association to their several categories, to say 
that this man shall go into one class, and that man, Mdio 
thinks quite as well of himself, shall go into a lower class 1 
Is there not here the occasion, almost the provocation, of 
disputes and bad blood highly dangerous to such an enter- 
prise ? 

I have no desire to multiply objections to this system 
or to magnify the scope of those that offer themselves to 
view. Heartily do 1 wish that workingmen might be found 
rising more an-d more to the demands which cooperation 
makes upon them ; but I entertain no great expectations 
of success in this direction. The reduction of profits 
through increasing intelligence, sobriety and frugality on 
the part of the wages class, securing them a prompt, easy 
and sure resort to the best market, is the most hopeful 
path of progress for the immediate future. There are of 
course some departments of industry where the services 
of the entrepreneur can be more easily dispensed with, 
than in others. Here cooperation under good auspices 
may achieve no doubtful success. 

It would a})pear that if cooperation could be intro- 
duced anywhere, it would be in agriculture : 3-et in no 

ranged from 4J^d. to 6s. If the workmen who were capable of doing 
the higher parts of the work (pointing, whitening, etc.) were to be put 
to making the whole pin, through all the ten processes described, the 
cost of the pins would be three and three-quarter times as great as 
under the application of the division of labor, with payments to each 
workman according to his capacity. 



COOPERATION. 381 

department of production have the experiments tried 
proved less satisfactory.^ One reason which, in addition 
to those ah-eadj enumerated, will probably alwaj^s serve to 
delay the extension of the cooperative system in this 
direction, is the great difficulty of determining the actual 
profits of a year or a term of years, with reference, as is 
essential, to the value of unexhausted improvements. So 
long as the eooperators hold together and divide the yearly 
produce, all goes well ; but if at anj' time one desires to 
withdraw, and men will not enter into associations of this 
character without the right of retiring, at pleasure, with- 
out forfeiture, the question of undivided profits becomes 
of the most serious importance. To settle it with absolute 
justice is simply impossible,^ and no method of arriving 
roughly at a result of substantial justice, is likely to avoid 
deep dissatisfaction and sense of wrong. 

1 An apparently successfal experiment in this direction obtains 
notice in Prof. Fawcett's Pol. Econ., pp. 292-3, note. 

^ Perhaps the difficulty of the problem will be best outlined, to 
those who are not familiar with this special subject of undivided 
profits, or " unexhausted improvements," in agriculture, by present- 
ing the following classification of tenants' expenditures on the soil, 
which was embraced in the Duke of Richmond's Bill of 1875. That 
bill divided improvements into three categories ; permanent, wasting 
and temporary. In the first class were included reclaiming, warping, 
draining, making or improving watercourses, ponds, etc., roads, 
f-ences, buildings, and the planting of orchards and gardens. With 
respect to these, it was proposed that an outgoing tenant should be 
allowed compensation for the unexhausted value of such of them as 
he might have made within 20 years of the termination of his tenancy 
with the written consent of his landlord. The second class included 
liming, clayiug, chalking, marling, boring, clay-burning, and planting 
hops, and it was proposed that the tenant should be able to claim for 
these processes, if done within seven years of the end of his tenancy, 
no consent being necessary. So also with respect to the third class- 
consuming by cattle, sheep, or pigs, of corn, cake, or other feeding 
stuffs, or using artificial manures — where, however, a claim could not 
go back beyond two years. 



382 THE WAGES QUESTION. 



The difficulties of industrial cooperation have been so 
manifest that schemes have been suggested for avoiding 
them in great part, by methods which should sacrifice a 
proportionally smaller part of the advantages looked for 
from cooperation. Among these schemes, one, which seems 
to have been first definitely brought forward by Mr. Bab- 
bage,' has been tried upon a considerable scale. By this 
plan, which may be called one of partial cooperation, the 
employer is induced to admit his workmen to a participa- 
tion to a certain extent in tiie profits of manufacture, while 
himself retaining tiie full authority and responsibility of the 
entrepreneur. By this plan the employer might fairly hope 
to attach iiis workmen to himself by more than the slight 
tie of daily or monthly employment, and to interest them 
so directly in the production of the establishment, as to 
secure a greater activity in labor and more carefulness in 
avoiding waste. The resulting advantages to the workmen 
would clearly be both moral and economical. There is 
quite a body of literature relating to the experiments 
in this direction, of MJVf. Leclairer Dupont, Giscpiet, and 
Lemaire. in France ; of tlie Messrs. Briggs, OMmers of exten- 
sive collieries and others in England;-^ of a few manufactu- 
rers in a small way in Switzerland,^ of M. Cini, an exten- 
sive paper manufacturer of Tuscany,^ and the Messrs. 

' In Mr. Biibbage's admirable little work on " tlie Economy of Man- 
ufactures," published in 1833, a plan of industrial organization is pro- 
posed on the idea that " a considerable part of the wages received by 
each person employed should depend on the profits made by the 
establishment." (pp. 249-50.) 

•^ J. S. Mill, Pol. Econ., ii. 335-7. 

=■ Thornton "On Labor," pp. 309-84— McDonnell's Survey of Pol. 
Econ. 230-1. 

* Report of Mr. Gould on the condition of the industrial classes, 
1872, p. 355. 

* Report of Mr. Harries on the condition of the industrial classes of 
Italy. 1871 p. 234-5. 



COOPEBATION. 283 

BreM'ster,^ carriage manufacturers, of Broome st,, N"ew 
York. That something of the sort is practicable, with 
the exercise of no more of patience, pains and mutual 
good faith than it is reasonable to expect of many em- 
ployers and many bodies of workmen, I am greatly dis- 
posed to believe. Many experiments, and probably much 
disappointment and some failures, w-ill be required to 
develop the possibilities of this scheme, and determine its 
best working shape, yet in the end I see no reason to 
doubt that such a relation will be introduced extensively 
w'itli the most beneficial results. 



The objections which have been shown to exist to p7'o- 
ductive cooperation do not apply v/ith anything like equal 
force to distributive cooperation, so-called (but which 
could moie properly be termed consiirnptive cooperation), 
that is, the supplying of the wages class with the necessa- 



^ The proposal of the Messrs. Brewster was most honorable at once 
to the good feeling and to the sagacity of the members of the firm, 
especially Mr. J. W". Britton, with whom the enterprise originated. 
The firm offered to divide ten per cent of their net profits among their 
employees, in proportion to the wages severally earned by them, no 
charge to be made by the members of the firm for their services prior 
to this deduction of ten per cent, or for interest on the capital in- 
vested ; the business of each year to stand by itself, and be independ- 
ent of that of any other year. This handsome proposal was accepted 
by the employees, and an association formed. The plan worked to 
the satisfaction of all parties, as high as $11,000 a year being divided 
among the hands : but at the great strike of the trades in New York 
three years ago, the workmen of this establishment were carried away 
by the general excitement, and the strong pressure bi-ought to bear 
upon them from the outside ; and the scheme was abandoned. So 
long as it worked, it worked well ; and showed that the plan had 
no financial or industrial weaknesses. The failure was at the point 
of patience, forbearance and faith, a very important point ; but may 
not masters and men be educated up to this requirement, in view of 
the great advantages to result ? 



284 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

ries of life throui;-li a^-cneics cstablislioil and supported by 
themselves. 

By productive cooperation, workmen seek to increase 
their incomes. 

By distributive or consumptive cooperation, they seek 
to expiMid their ii;comes to better advantage. They no 
longer seek to divide among themselves the profits of 
manufacture, but the profits of retail ^ and perhaps even 
of wholesale - trade. 

The advantages of this species of cooperation are: 

First : the division among the cooperators of the ordi- 
nary net profits of the retail trade. 

Second : the saving of all expenses in the line of adver- 
tising, whether in the way of printing and bill posting, or 
of the decoration of stores with gilding and frescoing, 
with costly counters, shelves, aiul show cases, with plate 
glass windows and elaborate lighting ap]>aratus, or ot high 
rents paid on account of superior location. The aggre- 
gate saving on these accounts is very large. The " union " 
store may be on a back street, with the simplest arrange- 
ments, yet the associates will be certain to go to it for 
their supplies, without invitation through newspapers or 
posters. 

Third : a great reduction in the expenses of handling 
and dealing out goods. The retail trader must be pre- 
pared at all times to serve the public, ami he does not 
dare to greatly delay one while serving another, lest hi^ 
should drive custom to a rival shop. He is therefore 

' For remarks of Messrs. Mill and Cairnes respecting the "excessive 
friction," and consequent undue protits and expenses of retail trade, 
the reader is referred to i>age olo-5. 

* Very recently tlie coui)eraiive societies of England have decided 
on a new and far reacliing step, and have undertaken the importation 
of foreign supplies required for their numerous stores and shops. 
This step evidently involves a very largo addition of responsihility 
and risk, without, as I should apprehend, a proportional gain in tlie 
event of success. 



COOI'J'^JiA TJON. 2Hr, 

obliged to be at an expcnwi for clerks and porters far 
exceeding what would be required were the tra^le of tho 
day Bomewhat more corKjcntrated. Some curious regultB 
of obftervatiofiB concerning the average num}>er of cu»- 
tomerK in fcliopo in J^^ndon, are given in Mr. Ifead'« paper 
bfjforc t)/f; Hocial Bcience A»ftomtion/ which may be 
hiirnrnarizcd an follows : 

iHt ol^H^jrvation : time, 4 to o'clock i'. m, ; in 88 8hopg 
there were 70 per»ong «= .86 per^ong to a ijhop, 

2d observation : time, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. ; o4 persons in 
the Bame 88 8hop8 »-= .01 ixiraonn to a fehop. 

3d oJ>Rcrvation : time, 2 to 4 p.m. ; 114 j)ergon» «=• 1.3 
persons to a fehop. 

Average of the tliree observationK : ,02 persons to a 
fchop. 

Xow cooperatore can effect a great saving in this re- 
npect. Joeing 8ure of their ciiaifmi, they can control it, 
and cjnKtiintrnUi it into a few hours or the day. or }>erhap8 
of the evening wholly. 

Fourth : a saving, of vast moment, in the abolition of 
the credit system, involving as that does the keeping of 
hooks, the rendering of accounts, and much solicitation of "^ 
payment, and, secondly, a very considerable percentage 
of loss by bad debts. 

Fifth : s<icurity, so far as possible with human agencies, 
against the frauds in weight and measure and in the ^ 
a'lulteration of goods, which are perpetratx^d extensively 
under the system of retail trade, tljc poorest customers 
being generally thcMje who suffer most. 

The difficulties of consumptive are fewer and less severe 
than thos^i of prrxiuctive cooperation. To liandle and sell ^ 
goo<^ls is a much less serious business than to produc^i 
them. When once marketed, the contingencies of pro- 
duction are past, the quality of the goods is already deter- 

* Tmnmetioan, 1873, pp. 440-50. 



286 TUE WAGES QUESTION. 

mined, and in the great majority of cases, only jnoderate 
care is rcqnired to prevent deterioration. Tlien again, 
the profits of retail trade are relatively higher, for the 
capital and skill reqnired, than the profits of manufacture ; 
and hence there is more to be gained by total or even 
a partial success. Finally and chiefly, the destination of 
the goods is already practically provided for; the members 
are certain to take off what is bought, if only ordinary dis- 
cretion is used ; waste and loss are therefore reduced ta 
the minimum. 

There are, therefore, powerful reasons, in the nature of 
the case, for the success of consumptive cooperation. The 
facts bear out the prognostication, although even this form 
of association has had many disappointments and often 
come to grief, not always from causes easily to be deter- 
mined. " Cooperation," says Mr. Ilolyoake, the historian 
of the movement in England, " is the most unaccountable 
thing that is found amongst the working classes. Nobody 
can tell under what conditions it will arise. Why it 
flourishes when it does, and why it does not flourish when 
it should, are alike inexplicable. Why should it succeed 
in Rochdale, Blaydon, and Sowerby Bridge, and never 
take root in Birmingham, Sheffield, or Glasgow ? There 
is no place in Great Britain so unlikely as Sowerby Bridge 
to produce cooperators. There are no places so likely as 
London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and Sheffield. Yet 
cooperators in some of these places make no more progress 
than a societ}^ of Naggletons. In Sheffield the socialists 
have tried cooperation ; the Methodists have tried it ; the 
(Catholics have tried it ; but neither Owen, Wesley, nor 
the Pope have any success in that robust town, where 
mechanics have more advantages, independence, and 
means, and as much intelligence as in any town in Eng- 
land." ^ We may fairly presume that the case is not alto- 

' Soc. Science Transactions, 1864, p. 6-8. 



COOPERATION. 287 

gether so mysterious as Mr. Holyoake would make it out 
to be. Lack of interest in the result, and consequent lack 
of the patience, pains, and self-denial necessary to achieve 
success, and unfortunate choice of managers, through in- 
difference or intrigue, would probably explain most of 
the failures of cooperative trading, where the principle of 
cash pajanents has been strictly adhered to, and where 
the enterprises have been confined to the supply of the 
cooperators w-itli the simple necessaries and comforts of 
life, without venturing into lines where fashion and taste 
predominate. The latest statistics attainable show 746 
cooperative societies existing in England and Wales. The 
total share capital reaches £2,784,000. The money taken 
for goods sold during the year M'as £11,379,000. The 
largest of all these societies is the " Civil Service Supply 
Association," wliicli musters 4,500 associates, and which 
in the six months ending February 2S, 1874, took in, from 
sales, £819,428. 

It is to be noted that these "stores" do not try to 
undersell the retail shops, but sell their goods at ordinary 
prices, and divide all profits, after a reasonable addition to 
the "reserve," annually or semi-annually, among their 
stockholders. The sums thus coming once or twice a year 
to a workman are likely to be so considerable as strongly 
to suggest the savings bank. 

In France, M. Ducarre's report, while announcing the 
comparative failure of cooperative societies of production, 
states that those devoted to the supply of articles for con- 
sumption, have at once had a much wider trial and 
achieved a much larger degree of success.^ In Germany, 
Belgium, and Italy, the movement for consumptive coop- 
eration is in full present vigor.^ Even in little Denmark, 
where but one industrial cooperative society exists, 37 

» P. 265. 

' McDonnell's Survey of Pol. Econ., pp. 224-5. 



288 THE WAGES QUESTION 

cooperative establishments are reported^ for the sale of 
articles of domestic consumption. In Austria, account is 
given ^ of 237 cooperative store-unions. In the United 
States, consumptive cooperation has been widely estab- 
lished ill connection with the "Granger" movement, and 
also, more on its own merits, through the organization 
known as the '* Sovereigns of Industr3^" ^ 

1 Report of Mr. Strachy, 1870, p. 512. 

' Report of Mr. Lytton, 1870, p. 5(34. 

' I am disappointed to find so little precise statistical information 
in Mr. Chamberlain's work on the Sovereigns of Industry. Figures 
of arithmetic are more needed than figures of speech, in discussions of 
cooperation. 



CHAPTER XYI. 

THE TEUE WAGES QUESTION", 

If the three great classes which together make up 
modern industrial society, in its highest development, 
have been justly delineated, it Mall be seen how inaccu- 
rate is that statement of th'e wages question which makes 
it identical with the labor question. The true wages 
question is tlie question of employment. Hence the 
popular phrase, " the contest of labor and capital," be- 
comes at once revealed as a misnomer. The true contro- 
versy is not between the laborer and the capitalist, but be- 
tween the laborer and his employer, to whom laborer and 
capitalist alike are compelled to resort for the opportunitv 
to produce wealth and to derive an income. 

In the highly-complicated organization of modern in- 
dnstry, the employer, the entrepreneur, stands between tlie 
capitalist and the laborer, makes his terms with each, and 
directs the courses and methods of industry with almost 
unquestioned authority. To laborer and to capitalist 
alike he guarantees a reward at fixed rates, taking for him- 
self whatever his skill, enterprise, and good fortune shall 
secure. How completely the laborer accepts this situation 
of affairs we see in the fewness of the attempts to estab- 
lish productive co-operation, as shown in the preceding 
chapter. But the laborer does not accept the situation 
more utterly, more passively, than does the capitalist. 
Quite as closely does the man of wealth who lias not been 



290 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

trained to Imshiess, respect his own limitations ; quite as 
little is he disposed to venture for himself. 

We have a striking exemplification of this impotence of 
the capitalist, as capitalist, in the experience of the United 
States during the past three years. What have the capi- 
talists done, what caji the capitalists do, to help them- 
selves in the event of a withdrawal of the business clas^? 
They have done nothing, certainly, in the present crisis : 
they can do nothing important, of themselves. They can 
lower their terms and offer their capital at diminished 
rates, affording enterprise thus a wider margin for profits ; 
but if enterprise finds this inducement insufficient, the 
capitalist has nothing to do. The money lies in bank ; 
the shops and stores are tenantless. 

Does the capitalist, discontented with the inadequacy of 
his remuneriition when he has for months received but 
two or three pe* cent per annum upon his money, set up 
business in order to employ his own capital and make a 
better interest for himself ? I trow not. The very fact 
that the veteran professional conductors of business have 
M'ithdrawn from production, or have greatly curtailed their 
operations, is a sufficient advertisement to him that it is no 
time for outsiders to push into the field. He knows that, 
in the best of seasons, a single venture into an industry of 
which he has had no personal experience, or even into one 
from which he has retired, but so long ago as to have be- 
come rusty in its methods, unfamiliar with its latest ma- 
chinery, and strange to the 'personnel of the trade, might 
well cost him a 3'ear's interest on his fortune ; while an 
attempt to carry on production, jnerely for the sake of 
employing his capital, in a time when the masters of tlie 
business shrink from the prospect of disaster, would, most 
likely, cost him the bulk of the capital itself. It is not in 
such a time, if ever, that the outside capitalist ventures 
into the field of industry. Even less than the laborer, 
who may be goaded by the stings of personal want, is he 
likely to step forward to take the place from which the 



EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED. 2D1 

entrepreneur retires. He, too, waits for better times, and 
nieaiiM'liile gets what lie can for liis money " on call." 

I shall, then, in the fonr remaining chapters of this 
work confine myself to (1) the comparative advantages, 
either in the essence of the relationship or in the acciden- 
tal constitntion of the classes as they are found in ex- 
isting economical society, which the employers and the 
employed may be seen to possess ; and (2) the means by 
which that class which we shall find at a relative disadvan- 
tage may be helped or hindered in competition for the 
product of industry. 

And, in the first place, it should be inquired, has either 
a natural advantage over the other ? 

It is to be observed that they are respectively buyers 
and sellers of the same thing,' service or labor ; and each 
finds his own interest only as the bargain is effected. Un- 
less that bargain be made, the employer can not have his 
profits any more than the laborer can have his wages. So 
far their interest is common : that the laborer shall be 
employed. It is only as to the rate of wages and the i-ate 
of profits that opinions and interests diverge. Hence we 
say, the relation of the two parties is not and can not be 
one of antagonism, for the object and effect of antagonism 
is to destroy or to supplant. 

Since, then, the employer gets his profits only as the 
laborer gets his wages,^ and because the laborer gets his 

^ Mr. Frederick Harrison, in a somewhat noted article in tlie Fort- 
nightly Keview (vol. iii., p. 50), strenuously maintains that "the la- 
borer has not got a thing to sell." This seems to be a question of the 
proper use of two words, thing and sell. There are no fsicts or eco- 
nomical principles involved in the dispute. If Mr. Harrison were to 
acknowledge the propriety of our use of those two monosyllables, he 
would not object to our statement otherwise. If, again, we were to 
take Mr. Harrison's view of the etymology of these words, we should 
not claim that the laborer had a thing to sell. 

"^ I am here speaking broadly. In an individual transaction the em- 
ployer may fail of his anticip-.ted profits and the laborer yet receive 
his wages all the same ; and in other possible cases an employer may 



J 



'293 THE WAGES QUESTION 

wages, it is clifRcult to see that tlie employer is any more 
necessary to tlie laborer than the laborer is to the employer, 
or that either has any natural advantage over the other. 

Not a little, however, has been written to prove that the 
employer has sneh an advantage. Mr. Thornton, in his 
well-known treatise On Labor, has sought to show that 
the sellers of labor are at a disadvantage. 

" All other commodities," he says,' " may be stored np 
for a longer or a shorter time without loss either in quan- 
tity or quality. But labor will not keep; it cannot Ije 
left unused for one moment without partially wasting 
away. Unless it be sold immediately souie portion of it 
can never be sold at all. To-day's labor can not he sold 
after to-day, for to-morrow it ivill have ceased to exist. A 
laborer can not, for however short a time, postpone the 
sale of his labor without losing the price of the labor 
which he might have exercised during the period of the 
postponement." 

Mr. Thornton certainly did not intend to say that labor 
can not be unused "for one moment" without wasting 
away, since the very first condition of labor is that for 
several hours in each day, perhaps one half of the twenty- 
four, it shall be unused. But taking this expression as a 
mere slip of the pen, we note that Mr. Thornton overlooks 
a common experience in industry when he asserts that the 
omission to labor on any day carries with it a total loss of 
the labor that might have been performed. It surely can 
not be denied that a man may work considerably harder 
one day for having lain-by the day before, provided it was 
not for a debauch, or in honor of Saint Monday, but that 
the time was really taken for rest. So that it is entirely 
possible, if, to save contention, we take the case of a man 
engaged in piece-work or hired by the hour, that a man 
may still have left him to sell a part at least of the labor 



consent to pay wages, and sacrifice liis own present interest in tlie pro- 
duct, for the sake of jirofits to be made in better tinaes. 
» On Labor, p. 93. 



i 



MR. THORNTON'S VIEW. 29'3 

wliicli, on Mr. Thornton's assumption, he would entirely 
and forever lose by failing to work, whether from delibe- 
rate choice, or by higgling with his employer, or by look- 
ing about for better terms than those offered him. 

I^or is it only on the day following that he may find 
himself able to render a portion of the service which Mr. 
Thornton assumes to be wholly lost by the failure to per- 
form a day's work every day. It is notorious that a laborer 
may be able, by lying-by a whole week, to perform a dis- 
tinctly greater amount of work every day of the week fol- 
lowing ; not, perhaps, that he can Avell do two ordinary 
weeks' work in one, but that he can in six days do considera- 
bly more than one ordinary week's work, if he has been pre- 
pared for the effort b}^ a long rest. And this capability of 
storing-up the power of labor is not wholly confined with- 
in the limits of a secular week. It is well known that in 
many trades, having peculiar natural or industrial condi- 
tions, workmen acquire an anaconda-like faculty of alter- 
nately gorging and digesting' through periods amounting 
to entire seasons of the year. I do not say that this is de- 
sirable ; I merely assert it as a fact. In none, it may be as- 
sumed, do the workmen perform as much, in the aggre- 
gate for twelve months, as if they had worked continuously, 
or at least with intervals of rest and recreation expressly 
adapted to maintain the highest degree of physical vigor ; 
yet in none, probably, do they fail to perform more, and 
it may be very much more, than it would have been possi- 
ble for them to perform in equal periods, without the 
preparation of a long term of complete rest. 

But it was not alone to correct Mr. Thornton in this 
particular that I quoted him here. Granting, for the time, 
the total loss of labor in the instances given, and admitting, 
for argument's sake, that the sellers of labor are in a differ- 
ent position from the sellers of any other commodity, is not 



* The scholars and men of letters wlio distribute their labors equally 
over the fiftj-two weeks of the year are, I apprehend, very few. 



294 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

Ihe buyer of labor in the same sitnation precisely? If he 
does not buy to-day's labor to-day, he surely can not buy 
it to-morrow ; it will tlion, on Mr. Thornton's assump- 
tion, have ceased to exist. If tlie laborer does not realize 
wages on his present capacity for labor, the employer 
certainly can not i-ealize proiits on it. Manual labor is 
the essential condition of all production of M-ealth. If 
manual labor is withdrawn, land can not yield rent, money 
interest, or business-enterprise profits. Labor, meanwhile, 
and just for the same length of time, loses its wjiges. If 
the stoppage is for a month, each party loses ona twelfth 
of its year. 

But that is an even stranger reason which Mr. Thorn- 
ton has discovered for attributing to the employer, in his 
turn, a disadvantage to a degree coimterbalancing that 
which he attributes to the laborer, as above. It is that the 
employer, in case of the continued cessation of industry, 
will become " industrially defunct" (On Labor, p. 275) 
when he has eaten up all his capital, whereas " the laborer, 
who is trying conclusions with him, provided only that his 
health be not permanently impaired by the privations he 
is meanwhile enduring, in preserving his thews and sinews 
preserves also his stock-in-trade and his industrial abili- 
ty." Mr. Thornton elsewhere (p. 177) explains what he 
means by employers becoming industrially defunct : " to 
them entire exhaustion of resources would bo absolutely 

fatal For the capitalist in losing his capital loses 

his all, distinctive class-existence included ; he ceases to be 
a capitalist." So, we suppose, if the laborer should starve 
to death for want of employment, he would lose his dis- 
tinctive class-existence, with his other existence, and cease 
to be a laborer. 

Now, in the first place, who, pray (accepting Mr. Thorn- 
ton's definitions of laborer and capitalist), is to find sub- 
sistence for the laborer, whom Mr. Thornton takes as ha- 
bitually poor, through the long struggle during which the 
capitalist is to become industrially defunct? Is it not 



MR. THOBNTOIT'S VIEW. 295 

sornetliing very like a bull to make the assumption that 
the means of tlie employing capitalist -would be exhausted 
before the means of the striking laborer, who accordingly 
remains sound and plump in "thew and sinew," while 
the emaciated master sinks out of his distinctive class- 
existence and, economically speaking, expires of inani- 
tion ? 

But, secondly, the employer (here spoken of by Mr. 
Thornton as the capitalist) does not necessarily lose all 
and become industrially defunct on losing his capital.' 
" Goodwill " remains, constituted of business connection 
and business reputation, which has been in countless cases 
better than a fortune to the able and deserving man of 
business. It is scarcely too much to say that an employer 
of character and standing, who should sink his capital in 
such a contest as Mr. Thornton supposes, would not fail to 
command the means to resume and carry forward his in- 
dustrial operations. Indeed, it is, at least in the United 
States, uncommon for a really reputable house to be 
extinguished even by a failure on commercial grounds. 
Witness the great liquidation of 1873-6. 

We do not, then, find any ground for attributing to 
either employer or laborer a natural advantage over the 
other. Certainly, if there be truth in the adage of Cha- 
teaubriand, "Le salaire n'est que Fesclavage prolonge," it 
is not on account of any thing essential in the nature of 
the relations o" the employer and the employed. 

We have aire idy, in discussing the causes which dimin- 
ish industrial mobility, alluded to the principal causes 
which place the wage-laborer at a disadvantage in com- 
petition. Kow that we have formally arrayed the em- 
ploying and the employed classes over against each other, 
two of these causes may instructively be considered more 
in detail. The first is the accidental fact of the superiority 
of numbers on the side of the employed, giving the em- 
ployers an advantage which is not at all of the essence of 
the relationship. In most countries and in most occupa- 



296 THE WAGES QUESTIOIT. 

tions' the buyers of labor are few, the sellers of labor arc 
many. Aside from the effects of possible eouibinatioiis 
among the buyers or the sellers, there is in this an element 
of weakness to the individual seller. For instance, if we 
consider the case of a manufacturer employing usually 
twenty hands, we may say that his need to employ those 
workmen is correspondent precisely to their need of em- 
])loynient. If the conditions of his business would allow 
the profitable employment of twenty hands, his loss, if for 
any cause he employs but nineteen, may bs assumed to be 
as great as the twenty workmen, taken as a body, suffer 
therefrom. But just here is the rub : the twenty are not 
a body having a common interest. The los^ is not to be 
divided equally among them. It is to fall entire on a 
single one of the number; and this calamity each one for 
himself hceks to escape. 

In the apprehension, amounting it may be to terror, of 
being left out of the number of the employed, each of the 
twenty is ready to accept terms below the ordinary rate. 
It does not require any analysis of the elements of the 
case to show that, in such a temper of the competitors for 
employment, wages Avill go below — it may be greatly 
below — the limit at whicli the employer might be able 
fairly to reimburoc himself for his expenditure and make 
his average profits. Here we have a result of distinct 
economical advantage on the part of the employer, arising 
not from the essential character of the isolation, but from 
the accident that the e.nployei's are few, the employed 
many. 

The second great fact in regard to the wages class as we 
find them, is their habitual poverty. This poverty is not 

■ The most marked exception is found in the matter of domestic 
service. The employers are here more numerous, but only in a mode- 
rate degree. The number of families employing one or two servants 
only, vastly exceed the more hisihly-organized households. But, upon 
our di'finition, domestic servants belong to the salary or stipend class, 
and not to the wages class. 



THE LABORERS FOVEBTY. 297 

at all involved in the position of a wage-laborer, and in 
fact it is not found as a rule in some communities, nor 
without exception in any community. The vast majority, 
however, of all wage-laborers have little or no accumula- 
tions, many being even without the means of subsisting 
themselves a month, or a week, without work. They are, 
therefore, unable to stand out against their employers and 
make terms for their services, or to seek a better market 
for their labor in another town or city, but must accept 
the first offer of employment, however meagre the com- 
pensation. Even though the matter in dispute between 
them and their employers may be sufficient to justify a 
protracted contest, they lack the primary physical means 
of sustaining that contest. The wage-laborer is thus like 
a poor litigant who must lose a valuable claim because he 
has not the money to pay the cost of a suit ; and after a 
struggle, short at the utmost, lis sees himself on the verge 
of suffering or even of starvation ; and, if not for his own 
sake, at least for that of his wife and children, is fain to 
accept the terms that are offered him. 

The employer, on the other hand, has only to calculate 
whether the matter in dispute between him and his hands 
is really worth a contest ; and if he find it so, he can, so 
far as his own mere physical maintenance is concerned, 
protract the contest indefinitely. By " indefinitely'' I 
mean that the term through which the master can with- 
hold employment is altogether out of proportion to the 
term during which the laborer, as he is found in actual 
life to be furnished with the means of subsistence, can 
manage to live without employment. 

But the employer may not deem the matter in dispute 
worth a contest, and hence it is of great importance to the 
laborer that he should have the ability, at least for a time, 
to dispute the employer's terms, and make him fairly face 
the prospect of a struggle before deciding against his de- 
mands. If, then, the employer sees that the profits which 
the lower wages would enable him, in a given period, to 



1/ 



298 TH!'J WAGES QUESTION. 

make will be eaten up in a period of inactivity, it may 
fairly be assumed that, if he can, he will concede what is 
asked. This, of course, implies that the question of p i- 
cuniary interest only is considered, and that bad temper 
and creature pugnacity' do not enter as elements in the 
situation. 

In connection with this assumed calculation by the em- 
ployer as to the expediency of standing ont ag linst a de- 
mand for wages which he may be able, tliougli reluctant, 
to conceds, we have to take into ac:;ount two elements 
which arc additional to the simple one oi: tha amount of 
wages to be paid. 

The first is the employer's interest in the continuity of 
jproduction. 

The interest which the employer has in the continuity of 
production, over and above the mere profits which he might 
expect to realize in a given period during which a sus- 
pension of industry might be proposed or threatened, 



'This exception is important. We have a string? dictum f r )in 
Professor Cairnes in liis work, Some Leading Principles of Political 
Economy (p. 238), as follows : " The temporary succet»s of a strike 
does not necessarily prove its wisdom ; but the f-iilura of a strike, im- 
mediate or ultimate, is decisive evidence that it ouo;lit, never to Lave 
been undertaken." It would be possible to place a c )nstruction on 
this language which should remove the remark from the criticism 
which the plain sense of the words invites. Surely it is conceivable 
tiiat a body of workmen should make a demand on their employer 
which the state of the market would fairly allow him to concede, and 
which, in another mood, he might cheerfully concede. The dem;ind, 
however, being made or met, it matters not which, in bad temper, ill- 
blood is aroused and a conflict precipitated. In such a contest the 
workmen might be beaten by the longer purse of a wilful, resolute em- 
ployer, and finally obliged to yield, without proving their demands un- 
reasonable, any more than a poor patentee being obliged to abandon 
an invention to a powerful coral)inaiion of manufacturers, in these days 
of tardy and costly justice, would prove that he never had any rights 
in the case. Of coursr", if it beheld that failure in human affairs of 
itself proves folly. Professor Cairnes's remark is justified. In that CMse 
it would be correct to say of a ship which should sail by the usual 
route from Liverpool to New-York and be sunk by an icebf^rj' hallway 
across, that she ought never to have undertaken the voyage. 



CONTINUITY OF PRODUCTION. 29D 

arises mainly out of that business connection and that 
business reputation wliich are summed up i:i the phrase 
" goodwill." Altogether besides the loss of immediate 
profits, an employer of labor has to contemplate a certain 
lc»ss of custom as involved in any protracted stoppage of 
his works. 

The world of politics does not sooner forget a former 
leader in retirement than the world of business forgets 
one who withdraws from the competitions of trade. Even 
the strongest houses, however completely they may seem 
to have the control of the market in their line, do not 
like to have their customers and correspondents learn to 
go elsewhere, through any failure of theirs to meet every 
demand upon them. Hence they not infrequently con- 
tinue producing through considerable jjeriods of depres- 
sion, making a sacrifice of their accustomed profits, and 
sometimes even for shorter periods producing at an actual 
loss, though on a scale as much diminished as is consistent 
with keeping their hold on their connection.' 

^ Somewhat aside from this consideration, yet liere mentioned in 
order to avoid multiplying distinctions, is the fact that, in some in- 
dustries, besides the sacrifice of the employer's profits during a stop- 
page, there are considerable expenses (additional to loss of rent an I 
interest) to be incurred in maintaining the service in condition for re- 
sumption. Such expenses are those of keeping mines free from water, 
and keeping furnaces in blast. If these tilings are to be done, it is at 
a great cost ; if omitted to be done, and the mines are allowed to fill 
up and the fires to go out, a heavy tax is imposed upon the resumption 
of production. On the other hand, it deserves to be mentioned that the 
suspension of production may at times be a relief to the employer. 
This may happen when the reduction of profits, through the depression 
of trade, coincides with an occasion for repairing or renewing machinery 
or enlarging works, or converting buildings to different uses. Thus 
we find it stated concerning the great Glasgow strike of 1874 : " Ad- 
vantage is being taken of the present opportunity to execute any im- 
portant repairs and reconstructions that can be undertaken ; so that 
even though the strike were at an end to morrow, some days would 
elapse before the work of production could possibly be in' full swing 
asraiu." — Iron and Coal Trades Keview. 



300 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

But, secondly, the employer has an interest in the con- 
tinuity of emjjloy merit. 

This arises {a) ont of the knowledge acquired, through 
previous service, of the laborer's disposition and charac- 
ter, especially as to honesty, truthfulness, and sobriety ; 
(b) out of that mutual adaptation, in way and habit, ex- 
tending even to the tone of the voice and the carriage of 
the body, which results between man and master, and be- 
tween every man and his mates, from long acquaintance; 
((') out of that familiarity which the workman acquires with 
the peculiarities of his employers busine^^s, whicli is wholly 
additional to a master}^ of the technicalities of the occu- 
pation, and which includes an intimate knowledge of the 
localities in which the industry is prosecuted, of the fix- 
tures and machinery in use, of the customers, it may be, 
of the establishment ; and lastly, of the minor yet im- 
portant characteristics which often distinguish the product 
of one establishment from that of any other, and thus give 
it a quality which, though it perhaps adds nothing to its 
ntility in the hands of the consumer, ^-et serves the pur- 
poses of the producer for the advertisement and easy 
recognition of his wares'; and {d) out of the loss of time 
or of energy which every change, simply as change, in- 
volves, in greater or less degree. 

The interest which, on the above several accounts, em- 
ployers have in preserving the continuity of employ- 
ment, varies greatly. No enq^loyer, it n.iay be assumed, 
but is interested to a degree in knowing how far he may 
look to his individual workmen for the simple virtues of 
honesty, truthfulness, and sobriety ; but in many large de- 
partments of industry the advantages which we have 
indicated as implied in the retention of workmen would 

* Many manufacturers and dealers will recognize this element as of 
no small importance. They identify the products of different establish- 
ments by their style and finish, as ensily and certainly as the editor of a 
newspaper comes to identify tlie smallest clipping from a contemporary 
by its paper, type, and " luake-up." 



CONTmUITY OF EMPLOYMENT. 301 

seem sliaclowj and unsnb=itantiaL Kew men taken on in 
an emergency do as mncli work, and perhaps do it as 
well, as the old. The conditions of the bnsiness, the na- 
ture of the products, are not such as to make it worth 
while to retain a workman at any great sacrifice, so long 
as another of the same industrial grade can be had. 

In other branches of industry, however, the advantages 
which have been enumerated are not only substantial but of 
great importance. At times, indeed, they are recognized 
in the grading of wages somewhat according to the length 
of service; and probably few employers of labor in these 
branches would deny that the reason of the case would 
justify that system behig carried much further than it is. 
Yet, while the distinct acknowledgment of the advantages 
of continuity of employment, by money payments propor- 
tioned to length of service, is still highly exceptional, it 
may be said that these advantages are almost as a rule re- 
cognized by employers in a preference given to their older 
employees in the event of a reduction of force ; and since, 
as has been shown heretofore, regularity of employment 
is to be taken into account in reducing nominal to real 
wages, we may fairly say that these advantages are actu- 
ally paid for in no inconsiderable amount. 

Yet, though workmen are thus compensated through 
money payments, or, more frequently, by preference given 
them in reductions of force, for the power they have ac- 
quired, through continuance in employment, of rendering 
a higher quality of service ; in general, at least, there is 
strong reason to believe that they are not paid as much on 
this account as the considerations adduced would warrant. 
The force of custom, the jealousy of fellow-employees, 
the stress of trades-union regulations,^ and, not least, the 
failure of the employer to recognize the full merit of the 



' Many trades unions or societies disavow tlie purpose to prevent 
workmen of exceptional merit from receiving wages above the 
average. 



302 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

workman and the degroo in which it contributes to his 
own success ; these latter, in connection M'itli the master's 
knowledge that, thongli the workman may take from hi'ri 
these advantages, he can not carry them to any one else, 
are in a great majority of cases snfficient to keep the i-e- 
mnneration of the higher grades of labor from rising pro- 
portionally to their real worth. Yet we can not don1)t 
that the employer's conscious interest in the C(mtinuity of 
employment does cntei',' in almost every issue joined be- 
tween him and his workmen, as an element in deduction 
from the compnted difference between the wages paid 
and the wages demanded. Few masters in any branch of 
industry conld contemplate the sudden change of their en- 
tire laboring force as less than a business calamity, while 
in many branches of production it would involve great 
loss if not ruin. Partial changes may indeed be effected 
withont actnal sacrifice of capital, but not without a 
marked increase of labor and of anxiety on the part of 
employers. 

' A very striking demonstration of the importance of this considera- 
tion in many branches of industry is to be seen by the most casual ob- 
server in the phenomenon of a part of the laborers in a trade wholly 
unemployed. Why are not all employed at lower prices? This would 
be the effect of simple competition. The answer is found partly in the 
force of personal consideration and respect arising out of acquaintarce 
and association ; but mainly in the employer's interest in the continuity 
of employment. He could not afford for a short time to take on new 
hands even at lower rates. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

WHAT MAY PLACE THE WAGES CLASS AT A DISADVANTAGE ? 

We Iiave seen (Chapter X.) that the only security which 
the wages class can have that they shall receive the largest 
possible remuneration which is compatible with the exist- 
ing conditions of industry, is found in their own perfect 
mobility. Without this, they are clearly subject to re- 
ductions of wages under pressure, to be succeeded only 
too surely by industrial degradation (Chapter IV.). And 
it is further evident that it matters not, in the result, 
whether the total or partial immobility of labor be pro- 
duced by physical causes, by the force of positive law, or 
by fear, ignorance, or superstition. Any thing which de- 
ceives the sense of the wage-laborer or confuses his appre- 
hension of his own interest may bo just as mischievous, 
in a given case, as bodily constraint. 

Following out this line of thought, we find that the 
wage-laborer may be put at disadvantage, 

I. By laws which act in restraint of movement or con- 
tract. Such laws may not be prohibitory, but merely 
regulative in their intention, and yet retard more or less 
seriously the passage from occupation to occupation, or 
from place to place. Even the mere necessity of registra- 
tion imposed must have an effect, however slight, in the 
nature of obstruction ; and unless it can be shown' that, by 
increasing the intelligence and confidence with which 

' See p. 169. 



304 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

changes of location or of occupation may be effected, it 
more than compensates for the degree of liindrance and 
irritation which the merest act of registration involves, it 
must be condemned as prejudicial to the wages class, 
whose supreme interest is the easv, ready flow of labor to 
its market. 

But it is not of such incidental or perhaps wholly un- 
designed mischief that labor has had chiefly to complain in 
the past- Those conntries are very young whose history 
does not afford repeated instances of direct and purposed 
obstruction to industrial movement and contract, in the 
interest of the employing class, which has generally been 
largely identical with the law-making class. The vicious 
maxims of English legislation in this respect extended 
even to the American colonies, free as they kept them- 
selves otherwise from tJie industrial errors of the mother 
country, and laws in regulation of service and of wages 
remained long on the statute-books of these enlightened 
communities. 

A brief recital of the English legislation in restraint of 
the natural rights of labor will not prove uninstructive. 

After the frightful plague, called the Black Death, 
which swept over England in 1318-49, carrying away 
" perhaps from one third to one half of the population,'" 
Avages rose, from the temporary scarcity of labor, to rates 
previously unknown ; nor can it be doubted that lal)or- 
ers, thus by a great accident made for the time masters 
of the situation, assumed a tone which employers relished 
quite as little as they liked their higher terms. To meet 
this exigency," Edward III. issued a proclamation for- 
bidding the payment of more than customary wages,' 

' Rogers, Hist, of Agr. and Prices. 

' " Because a great part of the people, and especially of workmen 
and servants, late died of the pestilence, many, seeing the necessity of 
masters and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they receive 
excessive wages," etc., etc. 

^Namely, those wages whicli had been paid in the 30th year of King 



LAWS FIXING WAGES. 3Ca 

and requiring workmen to serve in tlieir accustomed 
place. About a year later, the disputes wliich arose in 
determining what wages had been customary before tlie 
plague led to the enactment of a law (25 Edward III.) 
fixing for the whole kingdom the precise amount to be 
paid in wages in each of the j^i'incipal occupations. Ser- 
vants were to be '' SAvorn two times in the year before 
lords, stewards, bailiffs, and constables of every town to 
hold and do these ordinances." ..." And those 
which refuse to make such oath, or to perform that that 
they be sworn to or have taken upon them, shall be put in 
the stocks by tlie said lords, stewards, bailiffs, and con- 
stables of the towns by three days or more, or sent to the 
next gaol, there to remain till they will justify them- 
selves." The statute prescribed the "liveries and wages" 
of " carters, ploughmen, drivers of the plough, shepherds, 
swineherds, deies, and all other servants" in husbandry; of 
"carpenters, masons and tilers, and other workmen of 
houses," including their " knaves," and of " plaisterers and 
other workers of mudwalls and tlieir knaves."' 

But by the 13th year of Richard II. Parliament had ac- 



Ed ward's reign, or tlie average of " five or sis oth.er common years next 
before." 

* I select the following examples from the laws of the Massachusetts 
Colony : 

1630, 23d August. — " It was ordered that carpenters, joiners, brick- 
layers, sawyers, and thatchers shall not take above 2s. a day ; nor any 
man shall give more, under pain of 10s. to taker and giver." 

28th September. — " It is ordered that no master carpenter, mason, 
joiner, or bricklayer shall take above l&d. a day for their work, if they 
have meat and drink, and the second sort not above 12d. a day, under 
pain of 10s. both to giver and receiver." 

Two other acts had been ])assed of a similar nature, vrhen, on the 22d 
March, 1631, the General Court " ordered (that whereas the wages of 
carpenters, joiners, and other artificers and workmen were by order of 
court restrained to- particular sums) shall now be left free, and at 
liberty as men shall reasonably agree." In September, however, the 
Court suffered a relapse, and for four years longer continued to fix spe- 
cifically the wages of labor. 



306 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

cumulated experience enougli of the evils of settling a 
common rate for all England to provide that "forasmuch 
as a man can not put the price of corn and other victuals 
in certain,'" justices of the peace should in every county 
make occasional proclamation, " by their discretion, accord- 
ing to the dearth of victuals, how much every mason, car- 
penter, tiler, and other craftsman, workman, and other 
laborers by the day, as well in harvest as in other times of 
the year, after their degree, shall take, with meat and 
drink or without meat and drink," By the important act 
of 5 Elizabeth this power of justices to fix wages was 
re-enacted, and, though long disused, it was not until the 
53 George III. that the authority was formally with- 
drawn. 

But it was not the rate of wages alone which received 
the attention of the early parliaments. The statute of 37 Ed- 
ward III. required that " artificers, handicraft people, hold 
rthem every one to one mystery, which he will choose be- 
twixt this and the (said) feast of Candlemas ; and two of 
every craft shall be chosen to survey that none use other 
craft than the same which he hath chosen." By statute 
of 12 Richard II. it was ordained that " he or she Mdiich 
use to labor at the plough and cart, or other labor or service 
of husbandry, till they be of the age of twelve years ; that 
from thenceforth they shall abide at the same labor, with- 
aut being put to any mystery or handicraft." But the 
statute of the largest effect in constraining the courses of 
labor was that of the 5th Elizabeth known as the Statute of 



^The Massachusetts General Court reaclipd the same conclusion some 
•hundreds of years later, and having repealed, September 3d, 1635, the 
law " that restrained workmen's wages to a certainty," enacted in 1636 
"that the freemen of every town shall from time to time, as occasion 
shall require, agree among themselves about the prices and rates of all 
workmen, laborers, and servants' wages ; and every other person in- 
habiting in any town, whether workman, laborer, or servant, shall be 
bound to the same rates which the said freemen or the greater part 
shall bind themselves unto." 



LEGAL REGULATION OF LABOR. 307 

Apprentices, by whicli the access of unskilled labor to the 
trades and professions was restricted within the narrowe.-t 
bounds. A single section will suffice. 'No merchant, 
mercer, draper, goldsmith, ironmonger, embroiderer, or 
clothier may take an apprentice, " except such servant or 
apprentice be his son, or else that the father or mother of 
-such apprentice or servant shall have, at the time of taking 
of such apprentice or servant, lands, tenements, or other 
hereditaments of the clear yearly value of forty shillings 
of one estate of inheritance or freehold at the least." 

So much for restraints on movement from one occupa- 
tion to another. Movement from place to place was re- 
stricted with equal jealousy. By statute of 25 Edward 
III. it was ordained that, with exception of certain coun- 
ties, no laborer in agriculture should "go out of the 
town where he dwelleth in the winter to serve tli3 sum- 
mer, if he may serve in the same town, taking as before 
is said." By the statute of 12 Kichard II. it was provided 
that " no servant or laborer, be he man or woman, shall 
depart at the end of his term out of the hundred, rape, or 
wapentake where he is dwelling, to serve or dwell else- 
where, or by color to go from thence in pilgrimage, unless 
he bring a letter-patent containing the cause of his going, 
and the time of his return, if he ought to return, under 
the king's seal," etc. Although all life had long passed 
out of these statutes, it was not until 1824: that the laws 
prohibiting the emigration of artisans from the kingdom 
were repealed, as vain and uselessly irritating. 

Such extracts as have been presented will perhaps serve 
sufficiently to convey an impression of the minuteness and 
rigidity of the numerous acts which sought to regulate the 
industry of England. It is not necessary to show that such 
laws were always fully enforced,' to establish the certainty 

^ Many of these acts were doubtless passed ia the spirit of 2 a,nd 3 
Edward VI. (c. 9) : "Therefore, as the malice of man increaseth to de- 
fraud the intent of jrood laws, so laws must rise against puch jruile 
with the more severity, day by day, for the due repress of the same." 



300 THE WAGES QUESTION'. 

that they wrought grievous evil to the working cLisscs. 
If tliej had effect only iu part, if they wei-e only enforced 
here and there and now and then, or even if they were 
always to bo evaded, but by resort to concealment, strata- 
gem, or indirection, then they must have seriously affected 
the mobility of labor. . 

But it is doubtful if all the barbarous enactments we 
have cited are together, responsible for more of the present 
pauperism and destitution of England than is the law of 
j^aroehial settlement. This act originated in the reign of 
Charles II., and while other restrictions upon the move- 
ment of population were gradually giving way before the 
expansion of industrial enterprise and the liberalizing ten- 
dencies of modern thought, the mischievous provisions of 
the Law of Settlement were given a wider scope and an 
increased severity from reign to reign. It is only within 
the last twelve years that the cords that crossed the politi- 
cal Ijody in all directions, cutting off the circulation until 
every portion of the surface brolce out in putrefying sores, 
have been loosened. The image may seem extravagant ; 
but no language can: exaggerate the effect of such restraints 
on population. Migration within the kingdom was prac- 
tically prohil)ited. If the laborer in search of employ- 
ment ventured across the boundaries of his parish (and 
.there are 15,535 parishes in England and Wales), he was 
liable to be apprehended and returned to the place of his 
settlement; while parish officers were perpetually incited 
by the fears of the ratepayers to zeal in hunting down and 
running out all possible claimants of public charity on 
whom, if unmolested, re:idence would confer a right to 
support. " When an employer wished to engage a servant 
from a foreign parish, he was not permitted to do s) un- 
less he entered into a recognizance, often to a considerable 
amount, to the effect that the incomer should not ol)tain the 
settlement, else the bond to be good against the employer. 
Parochial registers are full of such acknowledgments.'" 



* Rogers, Pol. Econ., p. 123. 



LEGAL REGULATION OF LABOR. 309 

The peasant and the artisan, thus shut up within the 
place of their birtli, were compelled to meet the fate which 
awaited the industry of that locality. All local calamities 
fell with unbroken force upon a population that had no 
escape. The calamity might be temporary, but the effects 
upon character and life were not. Industry miglit look 
up again, but the peasant, broken in his self-respect, bru- 
talized, pauperized, could never afterwards be the same 
man. Employment might revive ; but no art of man, 
no power of government could reconstitute the shattered 
manhood. 

It is probably safe to say that no Continental country 
has, at least within late years., maintained any law so in- 
jurious in its practical eifects in producing a helpless im- 
n:iobility of labor, as the English law of settlement, the 
original object of which was to keep, not laborers, but 
paupers, in their place. But of laws directly seeking, in 
the interests of employers, to control the movements of 
labor, whether from place to place or from occupation to 
occupation, there is in the history of European legislatioa 
limit neither to number nor to variety. In France,' in 
spite of some contradictory features, it may be said that 
freedom of labor was achieved by the Revolution. In 
Germany, and among the Scandinavian'^ peoples, the system 
of restriction was strongly intrenched, and still survives 
with no little force, nothwithstanding the tremendous 
breaches made in it by the liberalizing tendencies of the 
last twelve or fifteen years. In Denmark, perhaps, of all 
these countries, free trade in labor is most nearly achieved.^ 
In Austria laws instituting the " Genossenschaften," or 

' M. Ducarre's Report of 1875. to wliicli I have several times referred, 
presents a good view of tlie course of measures by wliicli labor in 
France lias been emancipated (pp. 22-64). 

■^ " The corporation system exists witli more victor in Denmark, Nor- 
way, and Sweden," wrote Mr. Laing in 1851, " than in any other coun- 
try." — Denmark and the Duchies, p. 301. 

' Since 1862. See Report of Mr. Strachey on the Condition of the 
Industrial Classes, 1870, p. 505. 



310 THE WAGES QUESTTON. 

guilds, are so far modified that these are no longer clooC 
corporations. They arc still, however, compulsory associa- 
tions, to which every Austrian workman is under legal 
obligation to belong.* 

II. The wage-laborer may be put at disadvantage by 
a fictitious currency. The laborer suffers, with other 
classes of the community, from the disturbances of in- 
dustry which are always occasioned by an inflated and 
fluctuating circulation ; but the injury to which I refer 
imder the present title is due to the difliculty which the 
laborer experiences in adjusting his demand upon his 
employer to the rapid and violent changes in the currency 
cost of living, and to the illusions created by paper 
M'ealth, by which the laborer's expenditure is inevitably 
more or less perverted and distorted. 

The most diflicult mental operation which ordinary men 
are called iipon to perform is that of discount. Even the 
book-educated and men of affairs find it laborious and 
painful. Mr. Laing, the well-known traveller, has left a 
curious bit of testimony on this point in a remark made 
in his Tour in Sweden, to the effect that he always caught 
himself thinking of a mile in that country as he would of 
a mile in England, although the Swedish mile is seven 
times as long. If such is the experienc3 of a cultivated 
mind in so simple and familiar a matter, M'hat can be ex- 
pected of men of limited views and little information, 
subject unduly to the first impression of things and un- 
trained to arithmetical computations, when c.illed to render 
their wages into terms corresponding to the rapidly chang- 
ing prices of the necessaries of life ? It is a work which 
would task the powers of a philosopher ; it is extremoly 
improbable that a workingman M'ill succeed in accomplish- 
ing it. The laborer'a interest will not come to him: he 
must go to it; and to do so he must be able to identify 
and locate it with precision and assurance. In the abocuco, 



• Report of Mr. Lytton, 1870, p. 522. 



WAGES AND THE CURRENCY. 311 

therefore, of clear and definite ideas on the relation of 
wages and prices, the laborer must under such a currency 
follow blindly around after prices, guided only by a gen- 
eral sense of the inadequacy of his wages in making his 
demands upon his employer. Acting without intelligence 
in the premises, it is a matter of course that he sacrifices 
in some degree his own interests. He either demands too 
much, and failing perhaps in a persistent demand injures 
alike himself and his employer; or, asking too little, he 
rests content with getting that. 

It was doubtless with reference to this inability of the 
laboring class to meet such sudden and violent changes of 
conditions as are caused by a fictitious currency that Mr. 
Mill assigned to " custom" in economics the same benefi- 
cent function which it has performed iu the sphere of poli- 
tics as " the most powerful protector of the weak against 
the strong." Habit, usage, constitutes a barrier which in 
a degree preserves the economically weak from the liust- 
lings and jostling.? of the marketplace, and gives them 
room to stand.* A fictitious currency breaks down this 
barrier and involves all classes of the community in a fu- 
rious and incessant struggle for existence in Avhich the 
weakest are certain to be trampled down. 

But it is not alone in competition with the employer 
that the laborer is placed at disadvantage by a fictitious 
currency. If it is difiacult for the laborer to secure the 

' I am liere speaking of wag(! laborers as they are and not as they 
might be. There could be a better state of things still than that iu 
vhich "custom" protects the poor — that is, a condition in which the 
laboring class should be so intelligent, and hence so strong, that they 
could not afEord and would not endure to take a defensive position, 
but should welcome the utmost that competition could do. But so 
long as the working classes remain, as in most countries, ignorant and 
inert, it is possible that causes reducing the severity of competition 
may be properly correspondent to their weaknesses, and thus beneficial. 
However that may be, it stands by itself, that the working classes, be- 
ing inadequately prepared to follow around after changes of price, must 
be injured by whatever makes those changes more frequent and 
violent. 



312 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

adjustment of hid wages to the varying cost of living, 
much more clifEcult is it for liim to hold his own in the 
contest, with the retail dealer from whom he obtains the 
necessaries of life. A laborer's earnings are expended in 
hundreds of small purchases. If his earnings come to him 
in depreciated paper, and are to be expended in commo- 
dities at inflated prices, he is, if he avouM judge either of 
the proportion between his present and past expenditures 
as a whole, or between the price of any one article and 
that which he has had to pay for it, obliged to perforin 
operations of discount which would be laborious to an 
arithmetician. All hold being lost on " custom," how can 
he tell what he ought to pay per pound, per bnshel, or per 
yard for articles of ordinary consumption ? lie knows 
nothing about the conditions of their production, and has 
no longer a traditional price to guide him. Formerly, if 
an article of domestic consum])tion advanced considerably, 
he was in the mood and in the position to resist the ad- 
vance until it proved itself a genuine one. He disputed 
the higher price ; he alleged the customary price ; he held 
off purchasing as long as be could, because he disliked 
to pay the advance ; he inquired elsewhere to ascertain 
whether other dealers were askin-g the same. With a 
community in this temper, retail prices will not be wan- 
tonly advanced ; nothing less than a substantial reason in 
the state of the market will succeed in establishing a new 
price, and since every step will be taken against resistance, 
that new price will be kept down to something like the 
necessity of the case. 

But under a fluctuating currency this hold of the retail 
buyer upon customary price is lost. It is with prescrip- 
tion as with a bank-bill : when once it is broken, the pieces 
are soon gone.' The laborer loses his reckoning. When 
prices go up far beyond what is usual, he can not presume 
to judge whereabouts they should stop. After finding 



' The Northern Monthly, May, 1808 ; article, " The Greenback Era." 



TEE CURBENGT AND RETAIL PBIGE8. 313 

advance upon advance established, in spite of his question^ 
ing and complaints, he becomes discouraged. He learns 
to pay without dispute whatever the shopkeeper demands, 
for he has no means of determining the justice of that 
d3mand. It is this temper which enables the retail dealer 
to gather his largest profits and work his worst extor- 
tions. 

This it was, over and above the proper effects of curren- 
cy inflation, which allowed retail prices to be carried up to 
S'.ich an unprecedented height in the United State? during 
the war of secession, and to be kept up by combinations l^ 
of dealers long after whatever reason had existed for tlie 
advance ceased. The extravagant profits thus realized had 
not, as is well known, the effect to invite true competition 
tending to reduce prices, but merely served to allow the 
multiplication of shops and stands at every corner and to 
support an army of middlemen.' 

This point is of so much importance in the philosophy 
of wages, that I take tlie further space to present some 
notable extracts from the writings of Mr. Mill and Prof. 
Cairnes relative to the function of " custom" in retail 
trade. 

" Hitherto," says Mr. Mill, " it is only in the great cen- 
tres of business that retail transactions have been chiefly, 
or even much, determined by competition. Elsewhere it 
rather acts, when it acts at all, as an occasional disturbing 
influence. The habitual regulator is custom, modified, 
from time to time, by notions existing in the minds of 
purchasers and sellers, of some kind of equity or justice 
. Retail price, the price paid by the actual con- 
sumer, seems to feel slowly and imperfectly the effect of 
competition, and where competition doss exist, it often, 

' It appears tliat while the total number of persons reported as of 
gainful occupations at tlie census of 1870 was but 18 per cent greater 
tlian the corresponding number at 1860, the number engaged in trade S 

and transportation had increased in tlie decade 44 per cent. "Some - 
Results of the Census." (Soc. Science Journal, 1873, p. 91.) -^ 



314 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

instead of lowering prices, merely divides the gain among 
a greater nmnber of dealersP"^ 

" Competition in retail markets," says Prof. Cairnes, "is 
condncted nnder conditions which may be described as of 
greater friction than those which exist in wholesale trade. 
1)1 the wholesale market the sellers and purchasers meet 
together in the same place, affording thus to each other re- 
ciprocally the opportunity of comparing directly and at 
once the terms on Avhich they are severally disposed to 
trade. In retail dealing it is otherwise. In each place of 
sale there is but one seller ; and though it is possible to 
compare his terms with the prices demanded elsewhere by 
others, this can not always be done on the moment, and 
may involve mucli inconvenience and delay. A purchaser 
frequently Unds it on the whole better to take the word of 
the seller for the fairness of the price demanded, than to 
verify his statements by going on the occasion of every pur- 
chase to another shop. It is probable, indeed, tliat if the 
charge be excessive, the ])nr(!liaser will in time come to 
discover this, and may then transfer his custom to a cheap- 
er market. This shows that competition is not inoperative 
in retail trade, but it shows also the sort of friction under 
which it works, and helps to explain what has often been re- 
marked upon, and what, as a matter of fact, it is practical- 
ly important people should bear in mind — the different 
prices at which the same commodity is frcqnently found 
to sell within a very limited range of retail dealing, al- 
most in what we may call the same market. This is one 
circumstance that distinguishes retail from wholesale trad- 
ing. The other lies in the advantage which his superior 
knowledge gives the buyer over the seller in the transac- 
tion taking place between them — a superiority which has 
no counterpart in the relations of wholesale dealers. In 
the wholesale market buyer and seller are upon a strictly 
equal footing as regards knowledge of all the circumstances 

»Pol. Econ. i. 291,393. 



i 



FRICTION m RETAIL PRICES. 315 

calculated to affect tlie j^i'ice of the commodity dealt 
ill. . ; . The circiim&tancGS of retail dealing are liere 
again in contrast with those of the wholesale trade. The 
transactions do not take place between dealers possessing, 
or with the opportunities of acquiring, equal knowledge 
respecting the commodities dealt in, but between experts 
on one side, and, on the other, persons in most cases whol- 
ly ignorant of the circumstances at the time affecting the 
market. Between persons so qiialified the game of ex- 
change, if the rules be rigorously enforced, is not a fair 
one ; and it has consequently been recognized universally 
in England, and very extensively among the better classes 
of retail dealers in Continental countries, as a principle of 
commercial morality, that the dealer should not demand 
from his customer a higher price for his conniiodity than 
the lowest he is prepared to take.' Retail buying and 
selling is (sic) thus made to rest upon a moral rather than 
an economical basis ; and, there can be no doubt, for the 
advantage of all concerned."^ 

Prof. Cairnes elsewhere refers to " the excessive fric- 
tion in the action of competition in retail dealing." " The 
sluggish action of competition in this department of indus- 
try""(p. 132). 

III. The laborer maybe put at a disadvantage through 
the incidence^ of taxation. 



* " In the great majority of cases, nowadays, tlie del ate about the 
value of an article, called by Adam Smith, the Mcjgling of the market, 
is confined to \vhole?ale purcliases and sales. But a generation or two 
ago, the habit of bargaining in matters of retail trade was gei.eral. It 
still is a custom in many European countries. It is all but universal 
ill the East." — Prof. Rogers, Pol. Econ., p. 183. "The value of any 
thing in Spain is what you can get for it ; consequently, every pur- 
chase, from the most expensive articles of luxury down to tlie poorest 
vegetable, entails a system of hagL^ling and bargaining." — Mr. Ffrench's 
Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1871, p. 006. 

■'' Spme Leading Principles of Political Economy, pp. 128-30. 

^ I do not speak here of the degree of taxation. Whether govern- 
ment shall take much or take Ihtle is a political question. In some 
countries, even in the present day, the only limit to exact ons appears 



316 THE WAGES QUEST ro^ 

A theory of taxation which lias been urged somewhat 
widely asserts the entire indifference of the phiee or the 
subject of imposition. Instead of looking to the individ- 
ual citizen to pay his personal contribution, in proportion 
to his means, towards the support of government, it is pro- 
posed to \evj upon the agencies of production, or upon 
commodities in the course of exchange, or upon certain 
species of property visible and tangible, without considera- 
tion of the persons thus first called upon to pay the taxe-, 
in the assurance that the burden will, through the opera- 
tion of " the laws of trade," be diffused, in the course of 
time, equally over the entire community.' 

AVe have, however, reached a point of view from wliich 
we can discern the fallacy of this doctrine. The diffusion 
theory rests upon the assumption of perfect competition. 
It is true only under the conditions wliich secure the com- 
plete mobility of capital and labor. Just so far as any 
class of the community is impeded in its resort to its best 
market by ignorance, poverty, fear, inertia, just so far is 
it possible that the burden of taxation may rest where it 
first falls. In the language of Prof. Rogers,^ "taxes tend 
to remain upon the person who immediately pays them ; 
or, in other words, it requires an eft'ort, which is made 
with varying degrees of ease or difficulty, to shift a tax 
wdiich is paid by the first payer to the shoulders of an- 



te be the limit of tlie people's means, and all above bare subsistence is 
carried away by the strong arm of the law, to be spent in pomp, lux- 
ury, or war. But this, as has been said, is a political question, and so 
long as taxation presses on each class of the community with weijrht 
proportional to its strenoftli, I do not see that the economist can take 
account of the amount, any moro than of the objects, of such expendi- 
tures. 

' " I hold it to be true that a tax laid in any place is like a pebble 
fallinpf into and making a circle in a lake, till one circle produces and 
fjives motion to another, and the whole circumference is agitated from 
the centre." — Speecli of Lord Mansfield, 1766, on the right of Parlia- 
ment to tax the colonies. 

^ Cobden and Political Opinion, pp. 83, 84. 



DIFFUSION-THEORY OF TAXATION. 317 

otlier," ISTot only is the effort of tlie first payer made 
with varying degrees of ease or difficulty, but the resist- 
ance of the other person, on to whose shoulders he seeks 
to shift his own burden, maybe of any degree of effective- 
ness, powerful, intelligent, and tenacious, or weak, igno- 
rant, and spasmodic. The result of the struggle will de- 
pend on the relative strength of the two parties ; and as 
the two parties are never precisely the same in the case of 
two taxes, or two forms of the same tax, it must make a 
difference upon what subjects duties are laid, w^hat is the 
severity of the imposition, and at what stage of produc- 
duction or exchange the tax is collected/ There can, I 
think, be no question that under the old regime a direc- 
tion w^as given to taxation in every country of Europe, ex- 
cept Switzerland and Holland, which was intended to re- 
lieve the law-making classes from their just share of the 
expenses of government * and there can, I think, be as 
little doubt that, clumsy and unintelligent as was much of 
the financiering of those evil days, in this respect at least 
the intention of the law-making classes was effectually ac- 
complished. It is the opinion of Prof. Kogers, than 
whom, certainly, no man living is more competent to 
judge of snch a point, that the real weight of taxation 
during the great continental wars of England, fell upon 
and was endured by the poorer classes.'' If this was true 
of England, where the common people never lost their 
power of self-assertion, what shall be said of the misera 
jplebs contribuens of the Continent ? 

Speaking of France under the old regime, Sir Arch. 
Alison says : " Heavy taxes on the farmer, from which the 
clergy and nobility were exempt, aggravated by the arbi- 
trary manner in w^hich their amount was fixed by the in- 
tendant, and the vexatious feudal privileges of the landed 
proprietors, depressed the laboring classes, and rendered 

' The Nation, June lltli, 1874. 

* Notes to Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, i. 349. 



V 



t/ 



318 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

prosperity and good management little more than a signal 
for increased assessment. Snch wasthc accnmnlated effect 
of these bnrdens that the produce of an acre being esti- 
mated under the old regime at £3 2."?. 7r7., the king drew 
£1 I85. 4tZ., the landlord 19,9, 2>d.^ and to the cultivator Avas 
left the miserable pittance of 65., or one twelfth of the 
whole, and one eighth of the proprietor's share ; or if the 
proprietor cultivated his own land, the king drew £1 I85. 
Aid.^ and the proprietor only £1 45. ?)d. Whereas in Eng- 
land the produce of an acre being calculated at £8, the 
rent may be stated at £1 10«., land tax and poor rates 
10^., and there remains £6 for the farmer, being twelve 
times the amount of the public burdens, and four times 
that of the rent to the landlord." (On Population, i. 412.) 
And the same writer (Hist. Europe, xxii. 490, 491) 
quotes from Balleydier as follows respecting the taxation 
of Ilnngary prior to 1848 : 

" To such a length had the abuse of thes3 privileges 
been carried that the nobles and their servants paid no 
toll on passing the bridge into Pesth, though it contributed 
one of the principal sources of revenue enjoyed by the 
town. The peasants, bourgeoisie, and mechanics alone 
were burdened with it. The peasant alone paid the hearth- 
tax ; he alone contributed to the expenses of the Diet and 
the county charges ; he paid the dues of the schoolmasters, 
guards, notaries, clergy, and curates ; he alone kept up the 
roads, the bridges, the churches, the public buildings, the 
dykes, and the canals ; he alone paid the whole war taxes, 
and furnished the recruits to the army ; and in addition 
to all this he was compelled to hand over a ninth of his 
income to his lord, and to give him fifty-two days' service 
in the year. Finally, besides the charges of transporting 
■wood for his lord's family, he was burdened exclusively 
with the quartering of soldiers, and he was compelled at -all 
times, and for a merely nominal remuneration, to furnish 
such to the county authorities or their attendants. The 
Spartan Helots were kings in comparison." 



CHANGES OF TAX-LAWS. 319 

It may appropriately be added in this connection that 
while taxation, unequal in its incidence, may have the 
effect to place the laborer at a disadvantage, frequent 
changes of tax-laws are almost certain to prove prejudi- 
cial to his interests. We have seen that there is no assur- 
ance that excessive burdens imposed by taxation ill-con- 
sidered or intentionally oppressive will be diffused by the 
course of exchange over the entire community in due pro- 
portion, but it can at least be claimed that there is a ten- 
dency to such a result, however far that tendency may be 
defeated or deferred. That this tendency should even 
begin to operate it is, however, essential that time should 
be given. It is only by a long course that the ameliorat- 
ing effects looked for in the diffusion of burdens can be 
brought aroimd, if at all. If tax-laws are often to be 
changed, the class which is from any cause already at 
disadvantage is sure to suffer further and increasingly. 
Those who are buying and selling, watching and manipu- 
lating the market, are certain to get all the benefit of the 
remissions, and to recoup themselves for all the substituted 
impositions. Those who are economically weakest, the 
ignorant, the very poor, and those who are distant from 
the centres of infomiation and of trade, will suffer most. 

lY. The wages class may be put at disadvantage by in- A 
judicious poor-laws. The subject is a large one, and I 
must te content with a "fierce abridgment." Let us go 
back at once to the elementary question, "Why does the 
laborer work? Clearly that he may eat. If he may eat 
without it, he will not work. Simple and obvious ; yet the 
neglect or contempt of this truth by the English Parlia- 
ment, between 176Y and 1832, brought the working classes 
to the verge of ruin, created a vast body of pauperism 
which has become hereditary, and engendered vices in the 
whole labor-system of the kingdom which work their evil 
work to this day. The Law of Settlement has already 
been spoken of among the acts restraining labor in its 
resort to market; let us now contemplate the English. 



C20 TRE WAGES qUESTION. 

poor-laws as destroying the A'ery disposition of the ]ab3:'- 
ing class to seek an opportunity to labor. 

By statute of the 27th year of Henry VIII. giving of 
alms was forbidden, and collections for the impotent poor 
were to be made in each parish. By Ist Edward VI. 
bishops were authorized to proceed against persons who 
.should refuse to contribute or dissuade others from con- 
tributing. By 5th Elizabeth the justices were made 
judges of what constituted a reasonable contriljution. By 
14tli Elizabeth regular compulsory contributions were ex- 
acted. But the more famous act of 43d Elizabeth created 
the permament poor-system of England. By it every 
person was given a legal right to relief, and the body of 
inhabitants were to be taxed for this object.' By sub- 
sequent legislation the burden was thrown entire upon 
the landowners. Voluntary pauperism was vigorously 
dealt with ; the able-bodied were compelled to work ; Avhile 
by the act of 9th George I. parishes or unions of parishes 
were authorized to build workhouses, a residence in which 
might be made the condition of relief. This system, fairly 
administered, reduced the necessary evil of pauperism to 
the minimum. But, unfortunately for the working classes, 
a different theory directed legislation in the latter half of 
the eighteenth century, and a different temper of adminis- 
tration began to prevail. Six acts, passed in the early part 
of the reign of George III., intimated the changed spirit 
in which pauperism was thereafter to be dealt with. This 
spirit found fuller expression in Gilbert's act (22d George 
III.). Guardians were to be appointed to protect the 
poor against the natural parsimony of parish officers. 
The workhouse test was repealed for the able-bodied poor. 
Guardians were required to find work for all applicants as 
near their own homes as might be, and to make up, out of 
the rates, any deficiency in w^ages. By this latter provi- 

' J. W. Willis Bund on Local Taxation, p. 17. 



POOR-LAWS AND WAGES. 321 

sion, says Sir George NiclioUs,' " the act appears to as- 
sume that there can never be a lack of profitable employ- 
ment, and it makes the guardian of the parish answerable 
for finding it near the laborer's own residence, where, if it 
existed at all, the laborer might surely, by due diligence, 
find it himself. But why — it may be asked — should he 
use such diligence when the guardian is bound to find it 
for him, and take the whole responsibility of bargaining 
for wages and making up to him all deficiency? He is 
certain of employment. He is certain of receiving, either 
from the parish or the employer, suflicient for the main- 
tenance of himself and his family; and if he earns a sur- 
plus, he is certain of its being paid over to him. There 
may be uncertainty with others and in other occupations. 
The farmer, the lawyer, the merchant, the manufacturer, 
however industrious, active, and observant, may labor 
imder uncertainties in their several callings ; not so the 
laborer. He bears, as it were, a charmed life in this 
respect, and is made secure, and that, too, without the 
exercise of care or forethought. Could a more certain 
way be devised for lowering character, destroying self- 
reliance, and discouraging, if not absolutely preventing, 
improvement V 

The experience of England, under the operation of the 
false and vicious principle of Gilbert's act, answers the 
inquiry with which this quotation closes, in the negative. 
By 1832 the principle had been carried logically out to its 
limits in almost universal pauperism. In the case of one 
parish, the collections of the poor-rates had actually ceased, 
because the landlords preferred to give up their rents, the 
clergyman his glebe and tithes, the farmers their tenan- 
cies.^ In numerous other parishes the pressure of the 
poor-rate had become so great that the net rent was re- 
duced one half and more, while it was impossible for land- 
lords to find tenants. The pauper class had been elevated 

* History of the English Poor-Laws, ii. 96, 97. "" Ibid., p. 253. 



322 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

by a system of liberal relief, imaccompanied by a work- 
house test, far above the condition of the independent 
laborers,' who had only to drop-down npon the rates to be 
better fed, clothed, and lodged than their utmost exer- 
tions could effect while working for hire. Thus not only 
did industry lose its natural reward, but a positive pre- 
mium was put upon indolence, wastefulness, and vice. 
All the incidents of the English system were bad : the 
allowance for each additional child was so much out of 
proportion to the allowance for adults, that the more 
numerous a man's family the better his condition ;^ while 
the allowance for illegitimate children was more liberal 
than for those born in wedlock. 

Such was tlie s^'stem which the wisdom of Parliament, 
under the influence of the squirearchy, substituted for the 
economic law that he that wonld eat must work. The 
natural effects of this system were wrought speedily and 
completely. The disposition to labor was cut up by the 
roots; all restraints upon increase of population disap- 
peared under a premium upon births ; self-respect and 
social decency vanished under a premium upon bastardy.' 
The amount expended in the relief and maintenance of 



' The commissioners of 1832, as the result of extended comparisons, 
found tliat, while the pauper received 151 ounces of solid food per 
week, tlie independent laborer received but 123 ounces. 

'^ " In some instances," says Dr. Chalmers, " the vestries have felt 
themselves obliged to rent and even to furnisli houses for the reception 
of the nevvly-marritd couple." — Pol. Econ. 307. 

^ " The English law has abolished female chastity." — Mr. Cowell's 
Report. 

" It may safely be affirmed that the virtue of female chastity does 
not exist among the lower orders of England, except to a certain 
extent among domestic servants, who know that they hold their 
situations by that tenure, and are more prudent in consequence." — Re- 
port of the Commissioners of 1831. 

"In many rural districts it was scarcely possible to meet with a 
young woman who was respectable, so tem])ting was the parish 
allowance for infants in a time of great pressure." — Martineau, 
Hist. England, iii. 168. 



THE ENGLISH POOR-LA W8. 323 

the poor had risen to £Y,036,969, or 10 sliillitigs per head 
of the population. In this exigency, which in truth con- 
stituted one of the gravest crises of English history, Parlia- 
ment, by the Poor-Law Amendment Act (4th and 5tli 
William IV.), returned to the principle of the earlier laws ; 
that principle being, as expressed by Prof. Senior, that it 
is "the great object of pauper legislation" to render " the 
situation of the pauper less agreeable than that of the in- 
dependent laborer.'" The workhouse test was restored, 
allowances in aid of wages were abolished, paid overseers 
were to be appointed, and a central commission was insti- 
tuted for the due supervision of the system. Illegitimacy 
was discouraged by making the father responsible, instead 
of rewarding the mother, as under the former system. 
The conditions of " settlement" were mitigated so as to 
facilitate the migration of laborers in search of employ- 
ment. 

By this great legislative reform the burden of pauperism, 
notwithstanding that the evil effects of the old system still 
remained in a great degree, had by 1837 become so much 
reduced that the expenditure, per head of the population, 
sank to 5^*?. hd. Mr. Baxter in his work on Local Taxa- 
tion° gives some of the details by counties : 

1834. 1837. 

Sussex 18s. Id. 8.9. Id. 

Bedford 16 4 8 

Bucks IG 11 8 8 

Nortliampton 15 8 8 3 

Suffolk 16 7 9 3 

There is no need to draw, at any length, the moral of 
this episode in the industrial history of England. It is of 
the highest economical importance that pauperism shall 
not be made inviting. It is not necessary that any bru- 
tality of administration shall deter the worthy poor from 
public relief, but, in Prof. Senior's phrase, the situation of 

* Foreign Poor-Laws, etc., p. 88. 
2 P. 11, 



//■ 



324 THE WAGES QUESTIOX. 

the pauper, whether in or out of the workhouse, should al- 
ways be made less agreeable than that of the independent 
laborer. The workhouse test for all the able-bodied poor, 
and genuine labor up to the limit of strength within the 
workhouse, are imperatively demanded by the interests of 
self-supporting labor. One might, indeed, hesitate to carry 
' thelabortest quite so far as Pennant observed it in his Second 
. Tour in Scotland, where he writes : " Tlie workhouse is 
thinly inhabited, for few of the poor choose to enter : those 
whomever necessity compels are most usefully employed. 
With pleasure I ohsen'ed old age, idiocy, and even in- 
fants of three years of age contrihuting to their oivn sup- 
port hy the })ulling of oahumT^ There is no reason that 
I know of, why the principle of the factory acts should not 
be extended to the poor-asylum, to excuse infants ot tender 
years from work, or any danger to helpful labor in allov/- 
ing repose to old age or idiocy ; but wherever there is a 
possible choice between self-support and public support, 
there the inclination of the poor to lal)or for their own sub- 
sistence should be quickened by something of a penalty, 
though not in the way of cruelty or of actual privation, 
upon the pauper condition. •■' All," says Mr. George 
Woodyatt Hastings, '' who have administered the Poor 
Law must know the fatal readiness with which those 
hovering on the brink of pauperism believe that they can 
not earn a living, and the marvellous Avay in which, if the 
test be firmly applied, the means of subsistence will be 
found somehow.''''^ 

Y. May the laborer be put at disadvantage through 
the form in M'hich his wages are paid ? A great deal of 
public indignation and not a little of the force of law* 
have been levelled at Truck. How, in an effort to treat 
the wages question systematically, are we to regard this 
practice ? 

' Pinkerton. iii. 197. 

- Soc. Sc. Transactions', 1871, p. 146. 

' About sixty acts of the British Parliament have dealt with Truck. 



THE TBUCK SYSTEM. 335 

To truck (Fr. Troc) is to exchange commodities, to 
barter. The truck system of wages, then, is the barter sys- 
tem introduced between the laborer and his employer. 
"What objection can there be to this ? How can it be snp- 
]")osed to injure the laboring class? I sliall discuss this 
(juestion at length, not more on account of its intrinsic im- 
portance, than because it affords an excellent practical ap- 
plication of important principles relating to the distri- 
bution of wealth. 

The truck system may take two forms. First, tliero 
may be given to the laborer a portion of that which he 
actually produces, whether that product be suitable to his 
wants or not, leaving him, in the latter event, to exchange 
it as he can for whatever he may desire, food, drink, cloth- 
ing, fuel or shelter. Second, under the truck system 
the laborer may receive, not what he produces, but what 
he is to consume; he is paid in commodities supposed to 
be more or less suited to his wants. 

Both these forms of truck are as old as labor ; but in 
the earliest times they were generally found not separate 
but united. "What the workman produced he also de- 
sired to consume, and for his labor in tending sheep and 
cattle, and in sowing and reaping grain, he received wool 
for his clothing, and meat and bread for his food. And so 
to-day are the laborers of many countries mainly paid ; and 
doubtless in the majority of cases the practice is botli nec- 
essary and beneficial. But when distinction came to be 
made of labor as agricultural and as mechanical, and 
when employments came to be much subdivided, it would 
happen that a laborer's production was calculated to sup- 
ply but a part only, or perhaps none at all, of his wants ; 
for it might be that an artisan of Birmingham or Shef- 
field Avould be employed in making an article which he not 
only never used but never, even saw used. Hence, if he 
were to be paid in kind, he would be obliged to sell or ex- 
change the same for commodities more suitable to his ne- 
cessities, and this, it will be seen, he might have to do at 



326' THE WAGES QUESTION 

a very great disadvantage, having no place of trade, no 
business acquaintance, and no time to spend in bartering 
off his wares. So we find, in the fourth year (1464) of 
King Edward lY. of Enghmd, an act passed in which oc- 
curs the following : 

" Also whereas, before this Time, in the occupations of 
Cloth-Making, the Laborers thereof have been driven to 
take a great part of their AY ages in Fins, Girdles, and other 
unprofitable wares, under such price that it did not extend 
unto .... therefore it is ordained and established 
that every man and woman being cloth-makers, from the 
(said) feast of St. Peter, shall pay to the carders, spinsters, 
and all such other laborers, in any part of the said trade, 
lawful money for all their lawful wages." 

This is the first English act aimed at the truck system. 
Between that and the act of 1st and 2d AVilliam IV. (c. 37) 
intervened nearly four centuries, during which this system, 
in one or both its pliases, prevailed in respect to a great 
part of Englisli labor, and apparently the British Parlia- 
ment lias not even yet done legislating about it. 

I have said that the second form of truck is where the 
laborer is paid in commodities supposed to be suitable to 
his wants as a consumer, irrespective of the question 
whether he has helped to produce the identical articles or 
similar articles himself. This is done where board is 
given as a part of wages, but truck to this extent was ex- 
pressly excepted' from the prohibitions of the great Eng- 
lish truck act — namely, that of William TV., already re- 
ferred to. Another form of partial payment which is in the 
nature of truck, is the allowance of perquisites and privi- 
leges, such as the keep of a cow, the gleaning of the 
wheat-field, the cutting of turf, and others which we have 
had occasion to mention in speaking of the difticulty of 



' It was made lawful to stop wages on account of victuals dressed or 
prepared under the roof of the employer and there consumed by the 
artificer. 



BEER AND CIDER TRUCK. 327 

estimating tlie real wages of the laborer. This kind of 
payment prevails, from the nature of the case, mainly in 
respect to agricnltnral labor, and agrioultuixd truck was 
not forbidden^ by the act of William lY. One form of 
agricultural truck deserves especially to be noted. It is 
found in the beer or cider allowances so prevalent in Eng- 
land.^ The farms in that country where such payment is 
not stipulated or is not customary would doubtless be 
found, on a count, to be in a decided minority. In many 
cases the allowance is in amount reasonable, if we assume 
that the use of these drinks in any quantity at all is de- 
sirable ; but in a vast number of instances the figures 
of these allowances as reported are startling to minds 
unfamiliar with the statistics of beer-gardens. In some 
places Mr. Purdy reports' that the men have from 2 to 4 
quarts of beer daily ; women and children half that quan- 
tity. The cider-truck would seem to be carried to a far 
greater extent. Mr. Edward Spender states* that the agri- 
cultural laborers of the cider-producing countries, ])articu- 
larly Herefordshire and Devonshire, receive from 20 to 50 
per cent of their wages in cider ! Eight to twenty pints a day 
he indicates as the actual range.^ With such a state of 



' " Nctlnng herein contained shall extend to any domestic servant, or 
servant in Imsbanclry" (xx.). This exception was due in part to the rea- 
son of the case, and in part, we can not doubt, to the want of political 
power in the agricultural labor class. 

2 The words of the Massachusetts General Court are worthy to be 
commended to the hioh and mighty Parliament of England. "Whereas 
it is found, by too common and sad experience, in all parts of the 
colony, that the forcing of laborers and other workmen to take wine in 
pay for their labor is a great nursery or preparative to drunkenness and 
unlawful tippling, . . . it is therefore ordered and ordained by this Court 
that no laborer or workman whatsoever shall, after the publication and 
promulgation hereof, be enforced or pressed to take wine in pay for 
Lis labor." (May 14, 1645.) 

^ Statistical Journal, xxvii. 526. 

* Statistical Journal, xxiv. 333, cf. 339. 

' "In Herefordshire it has happened that a farmer paid his laborers 9 
shillings a week in money, and during harvest-time 9 gallons of cider a 



328 THE WAGES QUESTION: 

things, no wonder Mr. Spender can quote the statement of 
a medical gentleman, long resident in the eider district, 
that " the faihire of the apple crop has the same favorable 
effects on the health of the laborer as the good drainage of 
a parish has on the health of the inhabitants generally." 

But the form of truck which has especially excited the 
opposition of the working classes, and which has been 
stringently prohibited' by law in England, is the furnish- 
ing by the employer to the mechanical laborer, of goods 
for his personal and family consumption, the charges for 
the same being set off against the wages due. It is of 
truck in this sense only that we shall hereafter speak. 

The custom of part-payment in goods, M'hich at one 
time prevailed almost universally in many districts in 
England and very generally in the United States, did not 
fail to iind excuse for itself in the supposed advantage of 
both parties. It was claimed that, in many branches of 



"week." Mr. Spender's computations assume that the cider was a good 
merchantable article. On this point see Heath's EnjiJish Peasantry. 
One of the " clergy returns" published in the Report of the Convoca- 
tion of Canterbury on Intemperance, states the allowance of cider to a 
laborer at harvest-time. at 2^ gallons daily ; another at nearly 2 gallons 
(p. 39). In one of the " workhouse returns" the governor speaks of la- 
borers as "swallowing, some of them, as much as 3 or 4 gallons a 
■day." (Ibid., p. 40.) 

' The Act of 1st and 2d William IV. provides that " in all contracts for 
the hiring of any artificer in any of the trades enumerated, the wages 
of such aitificer shall be made payable in the current coin of the realm, 
and not otherwise." The trades enumerated are the manufactures of 
iron and steel ; the mining of coal or iron, limestone, salt-rock ; the 
■working or getting of clay, stone, or slate ; manufactures of salt, bricks, 
tiles, or quarries; hardware manufactures, textile manufactures, glass, 
china, and earthenware, mailufactures of leather, and others. 

There was excepted the right to supply to artificers medicine and 
medical attendance ; fuel, materials, tools, and implements in mining ; 
also hay, corn, and provender to be consumed by any horse or beast of 
burden employed by tlie artificer in the occupation ; also, to furnish 
tenements at a rent to be thereon reserved ; also, to advance to arti- 
ficers money to be contributed to friendly societies and savings-banks, 
or for relief in sickness, or for the education of children. 



BAIL WAT AND MmiNG TRUCK. 339 

industry, the proximity of stores and shops kept by per- 
sons disconnected with the employers could not be relied 
on to the degree recpiired for the supply of the laborers' 
wants. This plea was urged with most assurance, and 
probably with the greatest degree of truth, in respect to 
truck-stores for navvies engaged upon canals and rail- 
ways, as the gangs employed on such w^orks are, from the 
nature of the work, continually shifting their place, and 
often pushing into districts settled sparsely or not at all. 
At the same time, evidence was presented in the Com- 
mons Report on Railway Laborers (184:6) going to show 
that the supposed necessity for truck did not exist even 
here.* But as the building of canals and railways had 
reached no great proportions in 1831, when the act of 1st 
and 2d William IV. prohibiting truck passed, this depart- 
ment of industry was omitted from the enumeration in 
that act, and the truck system was kept up in full vigor 
on the canals and railways of the kingdom long after it 
had ceased elsewhere, or had sunk into an illicit traffic main- 
tained, under disguise and at risk, by the least reput- 
able employers. 

The department of industry which, next to that men- 
tioned, put in the strongest plea for truck, was coal and 
iron mining. In the nature of the case, works of this 
character are found principally at considerable elevations, 
upon difficult and broken ground, and often at consider- 
able distances from market towns.^ Hence the proprie- 
tors were not without a show of reason in holding that 
the prompt and sure supply of a large and perhaps fluc- 
tuating body of workmen required that shops for the 
sale of the necessaries of life should be established in im- 
mediate connection with the works themselves. 

^ Sir Morton Peto, then a great contractor, and one of the partners 
of Thomas Brassey, testified that there was no difficulty in provision- 
ing men on the most remote sections of railway. (Report, p. 75.) 

2 Commons Committee on Payment of Wages Bill, 1854. Eeport, 
pp. 37-9. 



300 THE WAGES qVESTIOR. 

But the opportunity to add to tlie profits of manufac- 
ture tlie profits, and (through the unscrupulous exei'cise 
of the influence and authority of tlie employer) more than 
the ordinary profits, of trade, did not suffer truck to be 
confined to departments of industry presenting so much 
of an excuse for the system as the building of canals and 
railways, and the mining of coal and iron. Truck long 
prevailed, to a vast extent, in connection with many 
branches of manufacture, and in many communities, where 
no reason but the greed of employers existed for the. 
practice. Workmen were compelled to buy at the mas- 
ter's store, on pain of discharge. Sometimes hints accom- 
plished the object ; sometimes threats were necessary ; 
sometimes examples had to be made. However strong 
the disapprobation of the workmen, or of the larger com- 
munity around, the profits of truck were so enormous as 
to overcome the scruples and the shame of many em- 
ployers. Those profits were five-fold. First, the ordi- 
nary profit of tlie retail trader, large as that is, and 
larger as we know it becomes, in proportion to the igno- 
rance and poverty of the customer. Second, there was a 
great diminution of ordinary expenses, due to the com- 
pulsion exercised. The trader, who was also the manufac- 
turer, did not have to resort to costly advertising to draw 
custom, to maintain an attractive establishment in a con- 
venient location, or to keep up an efficient body of clerks 
and attendants. The only advertisement needed wms the 
ominous notice to trade there : the store might be the 
merest barn, the service might be reduced to a degree 
involving the greatest inconvenience, and even hardship, 
to the customer.' Third, it seems to be abundantly 



' Mr. Seymour Tremenheere, in his exhaustive evidence before the 
Select Committee of 1854, stated tliat tlie truck-shops were so small, 
and the persons retained to serve customers so few, that the women 
attending to get supplies for their families, on the credit of their hus- 
bands' watjes, frequently could not enter, but that fifty or one hundred 
would be seen collected outside, waiting their turn to be served. He 



TRUCK PRACTICES. 381- 

proved, by the evidence before the several commissions 
and committees, that the charges at the ti"uck-shops were 
generally higher by 5, 10, or 15 per cent than at the ordi- 
nary retail stores. Fourth, the employer, having the 
absolute control of the laborers' wages, incurred no bad 
debts such as eat up the profit of the open trader. Fifth, 
the quality of the goods furnished was likely to be as 
best suited the interests of the employer, who, for the 
best of reasons, feared no loss of custom. 

Such was truck in England before the act of 1st and 2d 
William lY. ; and there can be no question in the mind of 
any candid person who peruses the painful evidence ad- 
duced in the course of tlie several inquiries which took 
place before and after that legislation, and who carefully 
considers the nature of the case, that, wdiether the system 
be intrinsically mischievous or not, abuses' shameful and 

had liimself seen women with children in their arms standing in the 
open air in bad weather, and on asking had been told they had been 
waiting for hours. (Report, p. 8.) 

Otlier witnesses placed the time for which a woman might thus 
be compelled to wait at the truck shop at two, four, or six hours, or 
even longer. (Report, pp.42, 128, 156-7,322,^30, 371.) Meanwhile 
the children not in arms were locked np at borne. 

Mr. J. Fellows, Registrar of Births, Marriages, and Deaths at Bilston, 
but also, it ought to be mentioned, a retail grocer, stated tliat in six- 
teen years he had had occasion to record a number of deaths, which he 
placed, from memory, at eleven, of young children burned in the ab- 
sence of their mothers while waiting at these shops. (Report, p. 43). 

' Sir Archibald Alison appeared before the Committee of 1854 as the 
champion of truck. 

" I think," he said, "generally speaking, the people are furnished 
with subsistence, and with articles of use for themselves and their 
families infinitely better than from the stores of private dealers." — Re- 
port, p. 229. 

"From all that I have seen I think the establishment of stores has 
been followed by a great improvement in the condition of the work- 
men." — Ibid. 

" I have known instances of workmen going miles to the master's 
stores in preference to dealing with the private shops."— P. 234. 
". . . . the immense advantage of the truck system in compelling 



382 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

even liorriblo Avere perpetrated under it. Doubtless there 
was mueli passionate exaggeration by men smarting under 
its evils, as there was in respect to the abuses of the old 
nnreformed jails ; to the Avrongs of American slavery ; to 
the outrages of the Confederate prison-pens ; but if the 
simple truth respecting truck in England in the early days 
of this century could be written out, it Avould form one of 
the most painful chapters in the long and dreary story of 
" man's inhumanity to man." 

Another wron.g which it is charged is done to laborers 
through the form of their payment, is by the so-called 
rental by the employer to the laborer, of the tools and 
machines necessary to production, the wages being stop- 
ped to the amount of the " rent." This alleged abuse 
attracted attention from economists and legislators in 
England particularly in connection with tlie hosiery man- 
ufacture, and we will, for brevity, draw our ilhistrations 
wholly from that branch of industry. 

The system of Frame Rents, as exposed by the evidence 
before the Commission of 1844 and the Committee of 
J 855, was this: 

Instead of the employer hiring laborers to work upon 
his own machines, paying them net wages for their ser- 
vice, the knitting is let out to middlemen upon contracts ; 
" the middleman supplies the workman with frames and 
other machinery, sometimes belonging to himself and 
sometimes hired of the manufacturer or other owner, and 
when he settles wnth the workman, he deducts out of the 
gross price per dozen of the work perfomied, first, a sura 



the workman to spendnlarge portion of his earnings in fooil for himself 
and his family." — P. 245. 

" I think the workmen in the jireat manufactories and collieries are 
just like a great ill-disciplined army. It is just as impossible to make 
them dispose of their money properly as it would be to provide an army 
with adequate subsistence if you were to abolish the commissariat and 
pay every man in money, and let liim buy his provisions where he 
pleased."— Pp. 237, 238. 



FRAME RENTS. 333 

as rent for the use of the frame ; secondly, a snm for 
winding the yarn, which is a necessary operation for each 
workman ; a third sum to remunerate himself for the use 
of the premises where the work is performed, and for the 
standing-room of the frame ; and a fourth for his trouble 
and loss of time in procuring and conveying to the work- 
man the materials to be manufactured, for his responsibili- 
ty to the manufacturer for the due return of the materials 
when manufactured, for superintending the work itself, 
and for his pains in sorting the goods Avhen made, and in 
redelivering them at the warehouse of the manufacturer." 
The language quoted is that of the Committee of 1855. 

That this system of gross wages, with deductions to be 
made for the use of machinery employed and on the other 
accounts specified, was not necessary to protect the owners 
of the machinery was abundantly proved by the fact that 
in trades requiring the use of even more costly and deli- 
cate machinery, the plan of clear net wages prevailed. 
The real reason for the frame-rent system, as brought out 
unmistakably by the evidence, was the profit to be made 
from the use of the frames, owned partly by the manufac- 
turers and partly by the middlemen. This was admitted 
by the manufacturers themselves, who even claimed that 
but for this profit they could not carry on their business in 
a depressed condition of trade.' 

^ Just as Sir Arcliibald Alison admitted, tlie masters made use of 
llie opportunities of the trucli-systeiu. Tims lie speaks of "periods 
of great distress, wlien the masters are driven to he sharp with their 
furnishings." (Report of the Committee of 1854, p. 232.) " I have no 
doubt that under these circumstances, during^ these periods of distress, 
they sometimes furnish inferior articles, at least to what they have 
furnished before." .... The complaints which I have heard 
have almost always been complaints about measure ; or, in some in- 
stances, I have heard complaints, in periods of distress, that the quali- 
ty of the goods was inferior." .... I think when a master is 
receiving high prices for his articles, for iron and coal, then his 
pockets are full of money, he is in affluent circumstances, and he is 
not, therefore, under the necssity of being strict with his furnishinrfs ; 



334 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

The fact of rents so high as to make this profit often 
enormous was abundantly proved. Mr. Muggeridge pre- 
sented authentic accounts of transactions where the an- 
nual rent charged approached, equalled, or even exceeded 
the value of the frames. Thus one workman in 22 years 
]iaid as rent upon a frame worth but £8 or £9 between 
£170 and £180.' Another paid ninepence a week for 30 
years, on a frame costing at the beginning but £7, and 
requiring but £6 or £7 for repairs during the entire 
period. Still, again, Mr. William Biggs, a member of the 
Committee of 1855, had testified before the Commission 
of 1841: that during the two years 1835-36 his firm owned 
£8000 of frames ; that the rents amounted to £5100, 
which, after deducting 5 per cent interest 2^<^^ annurn on 
the capital invested, and the cost of all repairs and inciden- 
tal expense?, left a clear profit of £1950, or 2tt| per cent 
for the two years. 

Such was the sj^stem by the admission of those inte- 
rested in its maintenance. But there can be no questioa 
that abuses were easily perpetrated under it. " The 
amount of this deduction," says Mr. Muggeridge,'' " is 
regulated by no fixed rule or principle whatever ; it is not 
dependent upon the value of the frame, upon the amount 
of money earned on it, or on the extent of the w^ork 
made ; it has differed in amount at different times, and 
now does so in different places ; the youthful learner or 
apprentice pays the same rate from his scanty earnings as 



that is to say, wlien trade is good, he gives good measure, he gives the 
best articles, and is liberal with his workmen ; he does not feel the 
pressure himself. If in bad times he is out at elbow and feels the 
pressure, as he always does in a monetary crisis, then he is obliged to 
be more strict with his workmen, and then complaints are made." 
There is somethinfj beautiful in this Tory confidence in luinian nature, 
leading to the assurance that masters wit] never cheat their workmen 
in measure or quality unless it is positively necessary to save them- 
selves. 

' Report of the Committee of 1855, p. 160. 

' Ibid. 



TRUCK AND LA188EZ FAIBE. 335 

the most expert and skilful workman in tlie trade from 
his of four-fold the amount." Moreover, the workman, 
obliged to hire the machine if he would have employment 
at all, was compelled, not infrequently, to pay the rent 
not only when prevented by sickness from labor, but also 
when no work was furnished him by the middleman, who 
had a direct interest not only in " spreading the work over 
a greater number of frames than were requisite,"' the 
amount given out being, accordingly, in some cases, " what 
would be three full days' work in a week, in others four, 
in some as little as two,"'' but also in keeping inferior ma- 
chines of antiquated pattern worn to the very edge of 
absolute inetficiencj^, since the less each machine could 
perform, the larger the number wliicli would be required ; 
and the more hands he could hold in dependence on him 
for an inadequate occupation, the move complete his control 
over these unfortunates ; the more meagre the living they 
were able to get off their frames, the less likely they were 
to have either the spirit or the material means to remove. 



I have given so much space to the questions of Trusk \^ 
and Frame Rents, both because of their prominence in 
the history of labor and in economical literature, and be- 
cause they afford illustrations of certain very important 
principles in the philosophy of wages. 

To the appeals of the working classes for legislation 
abolishing these systems, the economists of the Manches- 
ter school have replied with the doctrine of laissez /aire. 
Asserting, as they did in their contest for free trade, the 
self-sufficiency of capital, they felt bound to vindicate their 
consistency by asserting the self-sufficiency of labor. To 
them truck and frame-rents were a mode of ascertaining 
the wages of labor ; and they deemed the liours and me- 



' Report of the Committee of 1855, pp. 163,164, cf. p. 32. 
2 Ibid., p. 165, cf. p. 24. 



336 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

thocls of labor and the amount and kind of wages mat- 
ters to be left to employers and employed, i subject only to 
the " law of supply and demand." By the opei'ation of 
this law, the}^ claimed, the employer gets the laborer's ser- 
vices for the least snm possible nnder the conditions of 
supply ; and on the other, the laboi'er secures the greatest 
sum for his services consistent with the existing deunmd. 
The employer's least price and the laborer's greatest price 
are therefore the same, and no injustice can be done eo 
long as both parties are left free by law. 

It is, however, fairly a question whether the writers and 
statesmen of this school, in their valorous disposition to 
stand by their principle in every case where issue on it 
might be joined, have not mistaken their ground in the 
matter of frame-rents and truck. Surely, freedom oi 
contract, on which the Manchesterians insist so strongly, 
does not involve freedom to break contracts or to evade 
contracts ; nor does the most advanced advocate of laissez 
y«w'(? propose that breach of contract shall be left to be pun- 
ished by natural causes — that is, by the loss of business repu- 
tation, by the withdrawal of confidence, or by public repro- 
bation. But if exactitude of performance may be enforced 
by law without any interference with industrial freedom, 
why, pray, may not precision in terms be required by the 
law, as the very first condition of a due and just enforcement 
of contracts? Precision in terms is, however, manifestly 
incompatible, in the very nature of the case, with truck ; 
for if the employer says to the laborer, " 1 will paj' you for 
your work twent}^ shillings a week, but you shall take it 
in commodities at my prices," he does not in fact agree 
how much he will pay the laborer ; the use of the term 
twenty shillings becomes purely deceptive: it may mean 
more or less according as the employer chooses to fix his 
prices at the time ; the laborer can not tell what his wages 
really are ; the law can not tell, and therefore can not enforce 

' Fawcetfs Speeches, p. 130. 



TRUCK AND LAIS8EZ FAIRS. 337 

the laborer's right if litigated.' Perhaps we can not say that 
precision in terms is incom])atible with the very nature of 
the sj'^stem of machine rents ; but there is ample evidence 
to prove that it has been so in fact, and therefore the law, 
which is bound to enforce the contract, may justly demand 
that the contract shall not contain an element unsuscep- 
tible of exact determination. This is not interference 
with freedom of contract, but with looseness and uncer- 
tainty of contract, or with the power of one party to a 
contract to break, evade, or pervert its terms. 

But I am not anxious to reconcile the prohibition of 
truck and machine rents with laissez fairs. The autho- 
rity accorded to that precept is not, in my opinion, to be 
jufetilied on strictly economical principles. 

We hare previously (p. 168-9) discussed the principles 
on which it should be judged whether a law prohibitive or 
regulative in form really impairs competition, and pre- 
vents the resort of labor to its market. It was there seen 
that such a measure, though unquestionably obstructive 
as against a supposed pre-existing condition of perfect 
practical freedom, might, by removing important moral 
or intellectual obstacles to free action, which actually exist 
in human society as it is, have the effect to promote, and 
not retard, industrial movement. 

!Now, let us apply this principle to a proposed law in re- 
gulation or restraint of truck. It is, say Mr. Bright and 
Prof. Fawcett, an inteiference with freedom of contract 
and an obstruction to trade, and therefore mischievous — 



' For instance, suppose in a truck establisliment a workman to die 
having undisputed claims on the employer, for work done, to the nomi- 
nal amount of 100 sliillinfrs : what amount wnuld his widow be en- 
titled to recover in money at law, or would the employer be entitled to 
pay the debt into court in groceries and provisions, in quantities 
and at prices to suit himself V If the man had lived, the 100 shillings, 
would have been paid, wholly or in part, in truck. His death certainly 
does not change the nature of his claim ; yet is it conceivable that a 
court should award a payment in kind ? 



I^ 



888 THE WAGES QUESTIOK 

lalm-'z faire^ laisscz jms'^er. l>ut is it really or only form- 
ally obstructive ? There will not be absolute f readoni of 
luoveiuent with it. (irantetl. r>nt is there absolute free- 
dom of movement without \ii Assuredly not. Shall 
not, then, the (piestion be, whether there will be moro 
freedom with or without sueh a law 'i 

Now, if we ask the (|uestion respect iiiij;- truck and frame- 
rents in England as they were in the lrr^t half of the cen- 
tury, it must, I think, be answered that intiM-ference with 
the formal freedom of contract in these ])articulars served 
to enhance, in a most important degree, the substantial 
freedom of movement among the laboring classes. The 
laborer's practical ability to seek his best market is made 
up of a material element — the means of transportation and 
present subsistence — and of intellectual and moral elements 
quite as essential, the knowledge of the comparative ad- 
vantages of the diifercnt occupations and locations offering 
themselves, and the courage to break away from place and 
custom to seek his fortnne elsewhere. Ignorance and fear 
keep far more men in a miserable lot than does the sheer 
physical dithculty of getting from place to place, and sus- 
taining life meanwhile. 

At the laborer's knowledge of the comparative advan- 
tages of ditfjrent occnpations and locations, the truck 
and machine-rent systems struck a deadly blow. In addi- 
tion to the inevitable difficulties in determining the real 
wages of labor, which were detailed in Cliapter 11., this 
system introduced a new and most luipehsstlemcnt of un- 
certainty. The laborer's wages, p.iid nominally in money, 
were to be converted into commodities for his consump- 
tion, by an illicit process at ratesgoverned by the pleasure 
of the individual em])loyer at the ])articular time. The 
truck system Avas maintained for the jiurpose chiefly, as 
was admitted, of enabling the employers to " sweat" their 
laborers' wages, as counterfeiters " sweat" the coin of the 
realm. It M^as clainunl that in this way emjdoyers might 
make themselves good, if the nominal wag s they were 



TRUCK BLINDFOLDS THE LABORER. ;3C9 

paying were too liigli, more easily than they could obtain 
a reduction in the nominal wages tlieniselves. Moreover, 
the degree to which wages should be thus reduced would 
depend upon the rapacity or the necessities of individual 
employers, and also upon the state of manufacture and 
trade.' The great ilexibility of these charges was univer- 
sally admitted ; and, indeed, the readiness with which 
they could be adapted, in form and degree, to the times 
and exigencies of the master's business was made one of 
the chief reconmiendations. 

If workmen are to seek their own interests, they must 
know them. Every thing that tends to simplify wages 
makes it easier for the laborer to dispose of Ins service to 
the highest advantage. Every thing that tends to compli- 
cates wages puts the laborer at disadvantage. A system 
of gross wages, witli deductions " regulated by no fixed 
rule or jsrinciple whatever" (Muggeridge), varying with 
times and jdaces, and, as Sir A. Alison admits, varying 
with the state of trade and the disposition of employers, 
makes it impossible for the most enlightened workman to 
act intelligently respecting his interests, while the unedu- 
cated workman loses his reckoning completely : his senses 
arc deceived, and he is put wholly at the mercy of the ex- 
tortioner.'^ 

But it is said the w^orkman may not, indeed, be able 
to compute with exactness his net wages and tliose of his 
fellows, through all this system of allowances and deduc- 
tions and payments in kind ; but he surely can appreciate 
the result so far as his own comfort and well-being are 

' See Sir A. Alison's remarkaljle admissions on this point, quoted in 
note to pajye 333. 

■■' " This is a ^rreat oppression," quotli Arthur Younjr. " Farmers and 
gentlemen keeping accounts with the poor is a great abuse. So many- 
days' work for a cabin, so many for a potato-garden, so many for keep- 
ing a horse, and so many for a cow, are clear accounts which a poor 
man can understand well ; hut further it ought not to go, — and when 
lie has worked out what he has of this sort, the rest of his work ouglit 
punctually to be paid him every Saturday night." — Pinkerton, iii. 815. 



W) THE WAGES QUESTION 

concerned ; he siirelj knows whether he is well off or 
not ; and if he feels himself wronged, he will seek a bet- 
ter employer. But how, I ask, is he to jndge in ad- 
vance, under such a system of combined truck and ma- 
chine rents as oppressed the framework-knitters of Eng- 
land fifty years ago, whether his condition would be more 
tolerable nnder another master or in another place? 
Suppose him to have the rare intelligence and enter- 
prise to ascertain the gross wages paid by other employers, 
perhaps in distant localities, and to find some more 
favorable than his own, how^ can he have the slightest as- 
surance that greater severity in the administration of the 
system of stoppages and deductions, and greater greed in 
pxirsuing the profits of truck, might not make the dif- 
ference, and perchance more than the difi^erence, in nomi- 
nal rates? He can not tell nntil he has tried, and how 
often would a workman, on such a narrow margin of liv- 
ing, and it may be with a family, be able to change em- 
ployers and shift his place in order to better his lot ? 
How surely would he, after one or two bitter disap- 
pointments, relinquish the effort, and sink without a strug- 
gle iuto his miserable place, getting what wages he could, 
and taking for them what he might, at "the master's 
store." The fact is, the system of truck and machine 
rents, as administered in England in the early part of the 
century, completely Windfolded the workman, and left 
him to grope about in search of his true interest, in peril 
of pitfalls and quagmires, or, as was most likely, to sub- 
mit in sullen despair to every indignity and injury of the 
position in which he found himself. 

Surely, then, we are entitled to say that laws in re- 
straint of these practices differ from those other laws af- 
fecting labor which have been described in this chapter, 
in the one all-important particular, that the latter Avere 
intended to diminish that mobility by which laborers 
could seek their best market, while the former have the 
effect to make competition more easy and certain. 



IS TRUCK EVER JUSTIFIABLE f 341 

Is truck, tlien, always subjeat to economical censure ? 
I answer, Ko. Truck is a form of barter ; and lie v/ould 
be a bold man wlio should say that barter is always and 
everywhere prejudicial. When truck arises naturally, is 
compatible with the general usages of exchange, and is 
maintained in good faith by common consent, it may not 
only be unobjectionable but highly advantageous to all 
classes.' When, however, truck is forced upon a body of 
impoverished and ignorant workmen against the general 
usages of exchange, and maintained by intimidation as 
the means of " sweating" their wages, and keeping them 
down to the barest subsistence and under an incapacity to 
miojrate, then truck becomes a horrid wron<y and outraoje. 
This varying aspect of truck, according to the circum- 
stances and character of the community among which it is 
introduced, exemplifies the futility of setting up as economi- 
cal principles what are in truth mere rules of expediency. 

Thus, if barter be the general condition of exclianges 
in a new community, as it ordinarily is in the scarcity of 
currency, we may fairly say that it constitutes no special 
hardship to the laboring classes that they have to receive 
their wages in kind. Doubtless, in the further develop- 
ment of society and industry, the introduction of money 
payments in such a community will prove a real and 
great industrial advantage to all classes. Doubtless, also, 
the wages class, as presumably the poorest class, and that, 
also, the members of which have least time and oppor- 
tunity for rendering the commodities they may chance to 
receive in payment, into the commodities they desire to 
consume, would be most helped by such an advance. 

' M. Ducarre's report notices witli approbation the attempt of the 
Orleans Railway Company to supply their 14,000 employees with food 
and clothing. The results seem to show that the workmen thus ob- 
tained their supplies thirty per cent cheaper than they could have 
done at the shops. There is no reason why such enterprises sliould 
' not be carried out to a much greater extent, to the highest advantage 
of employers and workmen, and with general consent. 



343 THE WAGES QUESTIOK 

Yet, prior to tliat consuinination, the wage? class, or the 
eccnoinist sjieakiug for them, conkl scarcely make com- 
plaint that they were obliged to share in the general in- 
convenience, even thougli, from their industrial position, 
they might feel it more severely than others ; or demand 
that exemption from truck be secured them by law. In- 
deed, in such a general condition of exchange, it is quite 
conceivable that a class which should be enabled to en- 
force money payments to itself might thus secure an un- 
due advantage which would be resented by oihers as ob- 
tained at their expense. An amusing illustration of this 
is furnished by Gov. Winthrop in his History of New-Eng- 
land, as follows : 

" One Richard , servant to one AYilliams, of 

Dorchester, being come out of service, fell to work at his 
own h:ind, and took great wages above others, and would 
not work but for re idy money. By this means, in a year 
or a little more, he had scraped together about twenty- 
five pounds, and then returned, with his prey, into Eng- 
land, speaking evil of the country by the way," etc., etc. 
(Vol. ii. 98, DU.) The good governor notes with apparent 
gusto the fact tliat he was met by the cavaliers aiul eased 
of his money — ^his }>rey — on his arrival. 

But if we come, now, to consider a state of industrial 
society in which exchanges are generally' effected through 
the use of money, and iiupiire as to the results to a single 
class of the connnunity of being reduced, through some 
force operating ujxm them when in a position of disad- 
vantage, to accept payment for their services in commodi- 
ties' instead of currency, those, at least, who discard the 



' Clearly the evil, if there is any evil in the system, will be some- 
what according t > the variety of the articles thus forced upon the la- 
borer. The greater that variety the greater his disadvantage. One of 
the ariruments against ab dishing or abating agricultural truck has 
been that the arrangement was generally restricted to " one, two, or 
three distinct things." — Testimony of Mr. Tremenheere before tho 
Comuuttee of 1854. Report, p. 103. • 



HOW TRUCK MAY BE A HABDSHIP. 343 

theory of diffusion can easily see that wrong amounting 
to robbery might be wrought by this means. To deny to 
one class the advantage they would naturally derive from 
the introduction of a universal " standard of value and 
medium of exchange," while allowing it to the classes 
with which that single class is to compete for the posses- 
sion of wealth, would be not unlike prohibiting to one 
merchant the use of the railway, and sending him back to 
the stage-coach, while his competitors were permitted to 
use the telegi'aph and the steam-car. So long as the coach 
was common to all, none had equitable cause of complaint 
of the want of a better means of transportation. The hard- 
ship, such as it was, lay in the constitution of things. 
When the steam-car and telegraph came, they did not bone- 
fit all alike ; on the contrary, they tended to inequality ;' 
to make the great greater, the small, Ijy comparison at least, 
smaller, yet no one could rightfully charge blame in that he 
received less than others of the great addition to human 
well-being. It would be quite another thing, however, 
were one individual or class to be prohibited from par- 
ticipating, in his measure, in what should be the gain of 
all. This would be ground for complaint ; this would 
be gross, palpable injustice. And such a wrong was that 
truck against which the statute of 1st and 2d William \Y. 
was levelled. Truck prevailed, not because it consisted M'ith 
the general system of exchange in the country at the time, 
not because it was for the convenience of both parties, 
not from any scarcity of currency to allow cash pay- 
ments, but, in the vast majority of instances, it had been 
forced'' upon the working classes simply and solely be- 

* Tlie effects of railways in taking the life out of small country- 
towns, and drawing trade and manufactures to junctions and termini, 
are too familiar to need illustration. 

* In some cases even the pretence of adapting the commodities, in 
which the laborer was paid, to his wants was abandoned, and the la- 
borer was paid in whatever was most convenient to tlie employer. 
Evidence was given before the Committee of 1854 that workmen were 



344 TEE WAGES QUESTION. 

cause it enabled the employers to add the profits of trade 
to the profits of iiiaiuifacture ; because it kept the laborers 
always poor and in debt, and diminished the ease, or j^rac- 
tically destroyed the possibility, of migration, 

sometimes forced to receive such an excess of flour, for instance, as to 
have to pay their rent in this article, of course at inconvenience and 
with a loss. (Report, p. 6.) 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

WHAT MAY HELP THE WAGES CLA8S IN ITS COMPETITION 
roil THE PEODUCTS OF INDUSTRY. 

In Chapter III. were set forth certain causes which go 
to lieighten the etficieney of labor and increase the product 
of industry. Under the present title I shall have occasion 
to speak of causes, some of them the same, as operating to 
give the wage-laborer a larger share of that i^roduct, with- 
out reference to its absolute amount. 

Bearing in mind still that it is competition in the full 
sense of that word, involving as it does the strong desire 
and the persistent effort to buy in the cheapest and sell in 
the dearest market, which alone is needed to give the 
wages class the highest remuneration which the existing 
conditions of industry will allow, we can not find difiiculty 
in enumerating the principal helj^s to this end.' These are : 

I. Frugality. All capital is the result of saving ; 
and the frugality of the working classes, contributing to 
the increase of the wealth available for the pui'poses of 
industry, secures indirectly an increase of production. 

' Mr. Mill says : " When the object is to raise the permanent condi- 
tion of a people, tmall means do not merely produce small effects, they 
produce no effect at all." (Pol. Econ., i. 459.) The remark is just, but 
is perhaps liable to be misunderstood. Causes which, when contem- 
plated as operating in a given moment, appear so small as to be incon- 
siderable, may, if they operate continuously in any direction, produce 
great effects ; but then such causes can not, in a philosophical view, be 
considered small. 



v" 



346 THE WAGES QUESTION 

But Ave liavo licro only to do with tlic fact that, without 
reference to any increase of production, the "workman's 
frngility gives him a distinct advantage, rendering com- 
petition on his side, in one degree, more effective. No 
matter how clearly workingmen may discern their interest 
in a prompt resort to another market, whether that im- 
ply a change of occupation or of place, or both, without 
some savings out of their })ast earnings they must e'en 
say, with the " Third Citizen" in Coriolanus, " We have 
the power in ourselves to do it ; l)ut it is a power that we 
have no power to do." No human thought can distin- 
guish the several parts of ignorance and of penury in the 
immobility of agricultural labor in the AVest of England ; 
but it can not bo doubted that the poverty which has 
existed among that class siuce the I^apoleonic wars has 
contributed largely to the miserable result. Their scanty 
earnings have rendered it extremely dithcult for them to 
make any savings out of their Avages ; the lack of savings 
has ]daced them at the mercy of their employers by ren- 
dering it extremely dilhcult for them to escape to locali- 
ties offering superior inducements. Prof. Fawcett, writ- 
iug from Salisbury iu 1S73 or '4, says of tbe agricultural 
laborers of that section : " They are so poor that it is ab- 
solutely impossible for many of them to pay the expense 
of removing even to a neighboring county." ' I have al- 
ready cited the testimon_y of Mr. Muggeridge'^ respecting 
the removal of large nund)ers from the south and west of 
England at the public expense, by which persons who had 
actually been su])ported as paupers were imniediately 
brought to a condition of comfortable self-support. In 
some rare instances this removal of laborers has been ef- 
fected by the enterprise of private employers. Thus, at 
the meeting of the Social Science Association iu ISTi, Mr. 
C. M. Palmer, of JSTcM^castle, one of the largest employers 



' Correspondence of the Daily News. 
" P. 185. 



FRUGALITY AFFECTS WAGES. 347 

in England, stated that some years previously, when there 
was great distress in Cornwall, he had sent an agent to 
collect laborers, paying him so much for each man re- 
crnited, offering minimum wages until the men should 
hecome instructed in mining, one half the cost of trans- 
portation to be ultimately deducted from their wages. 
Mr. Palmer deemed that the enterprise had been very 
prosperous botli in his own interest and in that of the la- 
borers. The philanthropic endeavors of Canon Girdle- 
stone in securing the removal of laborers from the crowd- 
ed districts have also been alluded to. But whether such 
schemes are undertaken by government, by business en- 
terprise, or by private charity, they are almost sure to be 
successful, if at all, in some lower degree than where the 
laborer is furnished with means of his own earning and sav- 
ing, and undertakes his own removal. In strong contrast 
with the helpless condition of the agricultural laborers of 
the south and west, Prof. Rogers notes the independence 
of the laborers of Cumberland and Westmoreland, of 
whom it is reported that they " never allow themselves to 
be destitute of such a sum of money as will enable them 
to emigrate in case the ordinary rate of wages shows signs 
of yielding to the pressure for employment." ' 

On men thus provided, the casualties of production will 
work small permanent injur3^ Their reserves enable 
them to tide over any commercial disaster, and the return 
of prosperity fir.ds their efficiency unimpaired. If, on the 



1 Pol. Econ., pp. 101, 102. The savings-banks statistics bear out this 
assertion respecting the laboring classes of these counties. By the 
report of the Penrith Branch of the Carlisle Savings-Bank, it appears 
that the total amount due to 260 male farm servants was £9259 
9s. 5fZ. ; to 240 female farm-servants, £7904. 8«. 9fZ. Instances are given 
of £200, £300, or even £500 liaving been accumulated by a single per- 
son. (Second Report (1869) of the Commission of 1867 on the Em^iloy- 
ment of Children in Agriculture, p. 141.) 

Sir Frederick Eden in his " History of the Poor" has preserved some 
remarkable instances of considerable accumulations out of earnings. (I. 
495, 496, note.) 



348 THE WAGES QUESTION: 

other hand, the steady decline of industry in their section, 
under any general or special cause, imposes on them the 
necessity of migr.ition, they can go at the best time and in 
the best way. Thus we see that frugality on the part of 
the working classes g03s far to supply that condition on 
which competition will secure to them absolutely the liigh- 
est wages which the existing conditions of industry allow. 
"Wages," says Mr. Mill, " arc likely to be high where none 
are compelled by necessity to sell their labor.'' ' 

But while frugality is thus a condition of great impor- 
tance in seauring a beneficent distribution of the product 
of industry, we are compelled to acknowledge that the 
condition of the wage-laborer is not conducive to the devel- 
opment of this (piality. We saw '^ that he must, liuman 
nature being what it is, be somewhat less industrious than 
the person who works on his own account ; he is also likely 
to be less frugal. Take the case of the " peasant jjroprie- 
tor " of laud. Is there an hour of the day left, there is 
always something to be done ; the land is ever crying out 
for labor. lias he a few shillings t > spare at the end of 
the month, there is always something connected with the 
land which demands its investment. Whether it be work 
on the growing crop, or the ditching, fencing, and clear- 
ing of land, the increase of live stock and implements, or 
additions to stables and barns, the small farmer has always 
a good use to which to put every hour of labor and every 
shilling of money which he can command. After all, it is 
as Sismondi said : " The true savings-bank is the land." 

With the wage-laborer the case is different. lie can 
not reipply any portion of the product of his labor di- 
rectly to the subject-matter of his labor, for that is not 
his. If he would put any portion of his wages to a re- 
productive use, he must seek out some borrower, and 
the amount he has to lend being small, this borrower must 



1 Pol. Econ., i. 443. 
» P. 74-7. 



INTEMPERANCE AND WAGES. 349 

be the bank, which will lend the money out, he knows 
not when, he knows not where. This is a verv cold- 
blooded affair compared with the application of earnings 
to the land by the proprietor thereof, who works over 
it and lives upon it, who feels that it is all his, and shall 
be his children's after him. ^Neither the imagination nor 
the affections are addressed very powerfully by the sav- 
ings-bank. There is, besides, some delay involved in a 
deposit, which, however slight, defeats many a good reso- 
lution and brings many a half-consecrated sixpence to the 
grocery or the bar-room. 

I have named in the last word the great foe to frugality 
in the working classes. Wholly aside from the perversion 
of instincts, the loss of laboring power, and the actual vice 
and crime resulting from drunkenness, the waste of wealth 
shown by the statistics of the consumption of wine, beer, 
and liquors by the working-classes is appalling. 

I had occasion in the preceding chapter to refer to the 
payment of beer and cider as a part of . agricultural wages 
in England. The amount of money actually received and 
spent for these and stronger drinks is estimated, on respect- 
able authority, as follows :• 18(;9, £113,464,874: ; 1871, £118, 
906,066 ; 1873, £140,014,712. The author of this compu- 
tation proceeds to estimate the cost of the bread consumed 
annually by the people of England at £2 12.s. 6cZ. per head ; 
the cost of tea, coffee, sugar, rice, and cocoa consumed, at 
£1. 10s. 9d. per head : making altogether an average expend- 
iture for these articles of £4. 7.5. Sd., against an expenditure 
of £4. 7.5?. 2d. for alcoholic drinks, on the basis of 1873. At 
this rate, six years' expenditure would amount to enough to 
pay the national debt, or to build a house worth £150 for 
every family in the kingdom. There may be some exag- 
geration in these estimates ; audit is to be considered that 
the expenditure of the higher classes on this account is 
more than proportional ; yet one can not set the cost of 

^ The Temperance Reformation and the Christian Chixrch, pp. 112, 113. 



aSO THE WAGES QUESTION. 

AviiiOc!, ales, and li(|uois eoiisuiueil by the wa«;"c-hiburinj5 
I'lassi's of (»rc:it Uritaiu lowi-r than £100,000,000 per 
anuiiiu. Afr. (i, K. Porter, in a })aper read before the 
Statistical Society, adopted the estimate that one-half tlio 
income of worl<ini;'men earning between ten and fifteen 
ishillinn's a week was spent by them on objects in which 
other members of the family had wo share ; while the 
})roiH)rtion thus scltishly devoted by higher paid and pre- 
sumedly more temperate artisans earning from twenty to 
thirty shillings, not infrecpiently reached one third.' 

Yet, in spite of sti\)ng and urgent tendencies to dissipa- 
{'\on and extra\ag nice among the manual-labor classes, the 
statistics of tho t<a\ ings-bauks show a steady growth of the 
])rinciplc of frugality, the total lUposits in 18T''> reaching 
$312,000,000. The deposits in savings-banks throughout all 
Euntpe," exclusive of Ivussia ' and Turkey, are estimated, 
in a ri'})ort of M. ISoniuindie to the French National As- 
sembly in 1875, at a total of $1,180,000,000. 

' Statistical Jmu'iial, xiil. iUM. 

Mr. Baiiu's states that ninctoon-twentietlis of tho ocrupantsof cottagTS 
in Leeds pay their rent weekly, tind could not lie trusted lonfjer. (Statis- 
tical Journal, xxii. 130, 13*:^.) The plan of Monday-morning- payments has 
been widely urged as iv simple, practical measure in aid ot the laborer's 
instincts of fruj^ality. French laborers find less dilliculty in carrying 
their earnings past the cabaret. 

Mr, Brassey relati-s that during the construction of the Paris and 
Houen Kaihvay, the Frenehmeu employetl were, at their own request, 
paid only once a month. (AVork and Wages, ]). 17.) 

iMr. Mot'nlloch in his Commercial DieticMiary (p. 47S) argues strenu- 
ously that the State should refuse to protect snuill debts, with a view 
to promote triigality on tho part of the working-clnsscs. 

- The fullest body of information relating to banks of saving is to 
bo found in n recent report by Prof, Louis Bodio, the nccomplished 
chief of the Italian Bureau oi Statistics. " Casse di Kisparmio in 
Italia, ed all' estero." 

' Russia, however, has her system of saviiigs-bnks, nuniiiering six- 
ty-two, with deposits to the amount of lour and a half million roubles, 
in the name of si>venty thousand depositors. In ccmtrast with these 
facts we tind in little Switzerland not less than 05:5, 8')") dejiositors, or 
one in every seven of the jiopulation. In Denmark tlu- proportion is 
one to eight and a half. 



77/ a; HAVfNaH OH' TIIM WAOI'^.H CLASS. .351 

On l,lio (Continent (;i" Eui'op'j the uuiount of deposits in 
saviii^s-buikB represents but a fraction of tlio uccuniwhi- 
tions of the working classes. The passion of tlie coiriinou 
p'opic; for ui^quirin^ land leads to the continuous appiica- 
tioii of circuhitin;^ caj>ital to the purchase of this species of 
property,' while the various classes of credit institutions 
facilitate tlie erection of workinginen's houses. If it l)e 
asked how the acquisition of real property by tlie work- 
ing classes consists with the mobility of labor which is so 
much to be desired, 1 answer, one need have no fear that 
the true mol)ility of labor will be impaired at all by any 
form which the savings of the working classes may take; 
that the virtues which are required for the exercise of 
frugality, and wliich the exer(;ise of frugality strengthens, 
afford the best S3curity for all n;i(;de 1 movement of labor 
at the right time and in the right way; and finally, tliat 
the individual acquisition of I'cal property is never likely 
to become so general as not to le.tve a considerable ]) xtion 
of the members of every trade without ties to the soil. 

It is quite anoth'?r question how the extonsivo a(;f[uis!- 
tion of publi*; pi'opca'ty by the Swiss commimes''' affects the 
desired mobility of labor in that countiy. It would 
certainly appear at tliis distance to be inexpr^dient, as re- 
quiring an undue saci'ifice on the part of iudividii;ds who;n 
the conditions of industry seem to invite to other ]o.';ah'- 
ties. 

The statistics of savings-banks In Ihe [[nit(;d States arc 
not to be used with, much confidence, for the reason that 
onerous taxation has in several States driven large 
amounts of personal property, belonging to persons of 
means, under the ]>roter;tion of these institutions, which 



' III tho C'a.iitf)n of Bpriie, of 500,090 inliabitante, tlie real property- 
holderH numl)ere(l, in 180=?, 88,670. (Report of Mr. Gould on the Condi- 
tion of the Industrial C'lasne.s, 1871, p. 670.) 

''"The estiniiited value of the property held hy the Swiss communeH 
betvv(;en the years 186:} and 1804, in h^iien lently of the Cantons, may 
Vje put down at the large sum of i580.8'5o,077 francs." (Ihid.) 



353 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

enjoy a pai-tial immunity from contribution. It is not un- 
usual to deposit, up to the lin'iit of tlie amount authorized 
by law, in each of a number of banks, and still further to 
multiply such deposits by ejitering ccpial amounts in the 
names of wife and children.' 

J^otwithstanding this, however, it is evident that a vast 
body of wealth is held by the laboring classes of the 
United States in movable form, in addition to the sums 
invested in houses and lands. In 1ST3 the savings-banks of 
Maine showed 91,398 separate accounts, with an aggregate 
deposit of $29,550,524:; Khode Island, 93,124 accounts, 
$46,617,183; Massachusetts, 666,229 accounts, $202,195,- 
344 ; New- York, 839,472 accounts, $285,520,085. 

II. Individual and mutual intelligence among the work- 
ing classes. The phrase mobility of labor is very useful 
in discussions of the questions of wages, as expressing 
better than any other the one condition upon which 
laborers can receive the highest remuneration which the 
state of productive industry (their own present efficiency 
being taken into account) will allow, and the sole security 
which society can have that the inevitable immediate 
effects of industrial pressure or disaster shall not become 
permanent. Yet there is danger that the conception of 
what is involved in this term will be inadequate. Assum- 
ing the desire of industrial well-being to be universal, the 
mobility of labor should supply on the part of the wages 
class all that is needed for a perfect competition ; and this 
clearly requires something more than legalized freedom of 
movement, something more, even, than the possession of 
the physical means of transportation and subsistence need- 
ed for migration. The laborer must bo in a position to 
discern where his real interest lies, for to move in any 
other than the right direction may be more injurious than 



* One case has come to my knowledge where a depositor, after ex- 
hausting tlie list of his human family, entered the maximum amount 
in the name of his dog. 



INTELLIGENCE AFFECTS WAGES. 353 

to abide in liis lot, since all movement implies loss of 
force, and is only to be justified bj the prospect of a 
distinct gain in the result. 

This ability to discern where one's interest lies requires 
two things, the acquisition of just information and the 
rejection of false information. Of the former it is not 
necessary to speak. It is seen in the mere mention, how 
large is the requirement it makes of the working classes ; 
how slight the probability that this requirement will be 
completely filled. The second requirement is, among an 
ignorant population, even more difficult. So prone to dis- 
couragement are men, especially men lacking in mental 
training and culture ; so efficient is Rumor in her evil 
office of spreading the news of failure and disaster, that 
the effects of acting upon false information in a single 
instance may, with ignorant persons, neutralize the most 
substantial inducements of self-interest in many other in- 
stances. Such persons have little to hold on to, or steady 
their minds upon ; they generalize hastily and passionate- 
ly, or, rather, they do not in any true sense generalize at 
all ; and after the first shock to their confidence they be- 
come absurdly suspicious. 

Even in enterprises of less pith and moment, the cloud 
of prejudice, vague apprehensions, and false conceits, 
originating in ignorance, obscures the view, in every direc- 
tion, of the laborer's true interest. 

" Few," says Mr. Chadwick,' " who have not had ex- 
perience in the administration of relief to the destitute in 
periods of wide distress, can be fully sensible of -the dif- 
ference, in amount of trouble and chargeability to the 
ratepayers, between educated and intelligent and uneducat- 
ed and unintelligent people of the wage-class — the heavy 
lumpishness of the uneducated, their abject prostration, 
their liability to misconception and to wild passion, their 
frequent moroseness and intractability, and the difficulty 

' Statistical Journal, xsviii. 11, 13. 



854 TUE WAGES QUESTIOK 

of teaching them, as compared with the self-lielp of the 
better educated, who can write and inquire for themselves, 
and find out for themselves new outlets and sources of 
productive employment, and wlio can read for themselves 
and act on written or printed instructions. The really 
well-trained, educated, and intelligent are tlie best to bear 
distress ; " they aro the last to come upon charitable relief- 
lists, and the first to leave them." 

III. Sexual self-restraint. I am not speaking here in the 
Malthiisian sense with reference to the general supply of 
labor. In Malthusianism the average number of children to 
the family is the single consideration ; it matters not whether 
each family have four children, or one family none, and the 
next eight : tho supply of labor is equally affected. Again, 
while in Malthusianism the ago at which marriage shall be 
contracted and children produced is not a matter of in- 
difference, it i, only of consequence as it affects the period 
within which population shall double. I here adduce the 
desirableness of sexual self-restraint on an account which 
is wholly additional to this — namely, the infiuence it must 
exert upon the mobility of the laborer. We have seen 
the occasion iu modern society for a frequent, one might 
almost say an incessant, readjustment of population and 
industry. It is clear, that though the laborer can never 
wholly escape from this necessity, it is of peculiar im- 
portance that he should be as disembarrassed as possible 
durino- the vears when he is coming to find out his own 
powers and capabiHties, learning how to work, and getting 
into industrial relations, presumably for life. It is certain 
that he can make a favorable disposition of his labor then, 
if ever ; that he will never be able afterwards to seek his 
market with so little of effort and so little of loss. 

It is, therefore, economically desirable, without respect 
to the effect his earlier marriage might have on the 
general supply of labor, that at this critical period his 
mobility should be at the maxinmm. Of course, this 
proposition does not apply generally to communities iu 



A 



EARLY MARRIAGES AFFECT WAGES. 355 

tlie condition of tlie American colonies and tlie early- 
United States, where laljor was almost painfully deficient, 
and Avliere land was abundant. A young man there could 
scarcely have placed himself wrong; and any disadvan- 
tage the impediments of a youthful marriage might have 
occasioned him was amply compensated by the access of 
productive power which liis rising family soon bronght 
him, in a country where the condition of " diminishing 
returns" had not been reached. But when settlements 
became dense and production diversified, the necessity of 
a precise adaptation of labor to industry, and a consequent 
readjustment of population, becomes urgent, and that 
urgency increases with increase of numbers and diversi- 
fication of products. Hence it is that early and improv- 
ident marriages, such as characterize the Irish* at home 
and in foreign lands, influence unfavorably the rate of 
wages, wholly besides their effect on the general supply 
of labor. The young laborer is no longer free to abandon 
tlie avocation his adaptation to which he finds he has 
wrongly estimated, or the locality where he finds himself 
crowded by equally needy competitors, and to seek the 
price of his labor in a better market ; but, tied down by 
the cares of family, and harassed by immediate necessi- 
ties, he sinks hopelessly into what he knows to be the 
wrong place for him. 

But if we turn our attention from the fortunes of 
the individual to those of the whole wages class, we 
shall see an additional reason, in the interest of a be- 
neficent distribution of the products of industry, for the 
procrastination of marriage. The desideraticm is, we 
have seen, to secure the readjustment of population to 
industry. It is clearly true that the longei' marriage 
is postponed, the larger the proportion of the total labor- 

' Sir Arcliibald Alison, writing of the Irisii peasants in tlie days be- 
fore tlie Famine, speaks of tUem as "almost alwaj's" marrying at 
eighteen, and not infrequently becoming grandfathers at thir+y-four. 
(Hist, of Europe, xviii. 5.) 



l^ 



356 THE WAGES QUESTION: 

ing population which ■ will be free, so far as domestic 
incumbrances are concerned, to respond to economical 
impulses suggesting a change of avocation or of residence. 
It is not merely that, if they go in obedience to such sug- 
gestions, they secure their own highest remuneration, but 
they also relieve the market in those localities or occu- 
pations which they forsake. With the disposable element 
thus increased by the procrastination of marriage, the 
heads of families, those who, in the words of Bacon, 
" have given hostages to fortune," may to a very large ex- 
tent, except only in extraordinary emergencies, be exempt 
from this necessity. 

The average age at which marriages are contracted 
varies greatly with the industrial necessities and the social 
habits of different communities.' In Belgium, in 21.17 
out of 100 marria^s the groom is under 25 years ; in Hol- 
land, 21.42; in Sweden, 21.83; in Norway, 23.95; in 
Austria, 2S.40 ; in France, 29.06 ; in Scotland, 41.32 ; in 
England, 50.95. 

IV. Legal regulations clearly correspondent to infirmi- 
ties in the mass of laborers, which tend to defeat the real 
freedom of choice and power of movement. 

After making all allowances for the proneness of legis- 
latures to meddle and blunder, and for defects in ad- 
ministration of the law, it still remains true that the 
wages class may, in exceptional instances, be helped for- 

' Marriages take place at a very early age in India. Mr. Beverley, the 
Census Commissioner, calls attention to the fact that the religious be- 
liefs of the people contribute to this result, as it is deemed highly im- 
portant that the burial rites, on whicli the welfare of the soul after 
death, according to their faith, greatly depends, should be performed 
by male offspring. (Economist, May 9th, 1874, p. 555.) In Ireland early 
marriages have undoubtedly been promoted by the influence of the 
priesthood. (J. S. Mill's Pol. Econ. i. 345. 44G ; Alison's Hist, of Europe, 
xviii. 10 ; Statistical Journal, ssii. 217, xxiii. 205 ; Prof. Senior, quoted 
in the Edinburgh Review, October, 18G8, p. 328, cf. p. 336.) In Eng- 
land Mr. J. S. Mill charires that the policy of the Tory party has been 
to encourage early marriages. (Pol. Econ., i. 426.) 



LAWS PBOTEGTINQ LABOR, 357 

ward in an important degree towards a real and vital com- 
petition, by the exercise of the prohibitory power of the 
State. During the present century, says the Duke of 
Argyle, in his Reign of Law, ' " two great discoveries 
have been made in the scienca of government : the one 
is the immense advantage of abolishing restrictions upon 
Trade; the other is the absolute necessity of imposing y- 
restrictions upon Labor." There is here no inconsist- 
ency. I have shown in a preceding chapter that those 
economists who refuse to carry into the department of 
Distribution the ride of perfect freedom from restraint 
whicli they accept in the department of Exchange, do not 
abandon an economical principle, but only leave behind 
a practical rule, the conditions of which no longer exist. 
The possible justification of Factory Acts and kindred 
legislation may be thus briefly stated. For perfect competi- 
tion in wage-labor it is required that the employer and the 
laborer shall each understand and pursue his own true 
permanent interest. But this requirement is never com- 
pletely fulfilled. The employer, on his part, is always, in 
a higher or lower degree, unduly under the domination of 
immediate purposes. The haste to be rich, which often 
makes waste ; greed, which is always unwise ; parsimony, 
which disables from business success many a man who has 
every other qualification, rendering him incapable of ever 
taking; a large and liberal view of his industrial relations : 
rivalry, mutual jealousy among manufacturers affecting 
the temper of business and warping production from its 
best course — these passions and infirmities among employ- 
ers, quickened at times by stringent financial necessities, 
must more or less make separation between their seeming 
present and their true permanent interest. Thus it be- 
comes possible that the employer shall seek to crowd down 
wages, extend the hours of work, quicken the movement 
of machinery, admit children of tender age to painful and 

' Pp. 334, 335. 



3o8 THE WAGES QUESTION 

protracted labor,^ scrimp in tlie conveniences of produc- 
tion, and neglect the ventilation and sanitary care of his 
shop or factory, all in the etfort to increase tlic month's 
and the year's protits, though sucli a course is, in the long 
view, prejudicial alike to himself and his hands. Perfect 
competition would make the employer the guardian of the 
laborer's interests. AVhat sort of a guardian imperfect 
competition makes of the employer unrestrained by law 
or an active public sentiment, may be read in the official re- 
ports of Great Britain, in which the ct)ndition of her 
mines and mills and factories prior to their legal regulation 
is described. 

Put the failure of true competition is, as has already 
been abundantly shown, far greater on the side of the 
wages class, though in this respect very wide dilferences 
exist, due both to the industrial quality of the individual 
laborer and to the nature of the occupation pursued. The 
skilled workman, receiving high Avages, with an ample 
niaro'in of subsistence, is always fairly able to seek his best 
market. Doubtless he fails in a considerable degree, at 
times, for want of apprehension, or of the spirit of enter- 
prise ; but, in the main, he satisfies the condition of a 
riffht distribution. Even the unskilled and unintelligent la- 
borer, in occupations involving no extensive subdivision of 
work or expensive machinery and materials, may find his 
place tardily and painfully, and make his terms, though at 
some loss. It is when laborers of both sexes and all ages, 
each doing some special operation — a small part of a great 
■svork — are aggregated in mills and factories where costly 
materials are consumed and complicated machinery is em- 
ployed, that the control of the individual over his lot is. 
diminished to the minimum. What is the single laborer in 



' " Quand Tenfant n'est pas extenue par iin travail premature, et 
quand on attend qu'il ait les forces necessaires avant de 1' astreindre au 
travail, uue fois parvenu sx luge d'homme, il est meilleur ouvrier, tra- 
vaillemieux, plus vite et produit davantago." — M. Wolowr»ki: — I^egis- 
latiou sur le Travail des Enfauts. (MM. Tallon and Maurice, p. 233.) 



EN0LI8H FACTORY ACTS. 359 

a cotton-mill ? What does liis will or wish stand for ? The 
mill itself becomes one vast machine which rolls on in its 
appointed work, tearing, crushing, or grinding its human, 
just as relentlessly as it does its other, material. The 
force of discipline completely subjects the interests and 
the objects of the individual to the necessities of a great 
establishment. Whoever fails to keep up, or faints by 
the way, is relentlessly thrown out. If the wheel runs for 
twelve hours in the day, every operative must be in his 
place from the first to the last revolution. If it runs for 
thirteen hours or fourteen, he must still be at his post. Per- 
sonality disappears ; even the instinct of self-assertion is 
lost ; apathy soon succeeds to ambition and hopefulness. 
The laborer can quarrel no more with the foul air of his 
unventilated factory, burdened with poisons, than he can 
quarrel with the great wheel that turns below. 

This helplessness, this subjection to an order which the 
workman has not established, and can not in one particular 
change, becomes more complete in the case of women and 
children, while the responsibility of the State therefor 
becomes more direct and urgent. 

It is on such considerations as these, that the econonlist 
may, acting under the fullest accountability to strictly 
economical principles, advocate what Mr. ISTewmarch calls' 
" a sound system of interference with the hours of labor." 

The Factory legislation of England, the necessity and 
economical j ustiiication of which tlie Duke of Argyle 
has called one of the great discoveries of the century in 
the science of government, began in 1802 with the act of 
4:2d George III., limiting tlie hours of labor in woolen 
and cotton mills and factories to twelve, exclusive of 
meal-times, imposing many sanitary regulations upon the 
working and sleeping rooms of operatives, requiring the 
instruction of children in letters for the first four years of 
their apprenticeship, and providing an official inspection 

' Statistical Journal, xxiv. 462. 



360 THE WAGES QUESTIOK. 

of establishments for the due execution of the Liw. 
Additional legislation was had in 1816 and 1831 ; and in 
1833 was passed the important act known as 3d and 4th 
William IV. (c. 103), which forbade night-work in tlie 

/ case of all persons undar eighteen years of age, and limit- 
ed the labor of such persons to twelve hours, inclusive of 
an hour and a half for meals ; prohibited the employ- 
ment (except in silk-mills) of children under nine years 
of age, while between the ages of nine and thirteen the 
hours were reduced to eight a day (in silk-mills, ten) ; 
prescribed a certain number of half-holidays in the year, 
and required medical certificates of health on the admis- 
sion of children to factory labor. The scope of these 
provisions has been extended, successively, by legislation 
in 1844, 1847, 1850, 1853, 1861, 1864, and 1867, until 
they now embrace all persons engaged in processes inci- 
dental to the manufacture of textile fabrics, with but slight 
exception, and also to the manufacture of earthenware, 
lucifer-matches, percussion-caps and cartridges, or in the 
employments of paper-staining and fustian-cutting. 

, The principle of the English Factory Acts has been slow- 

ly extended over a considerable portion of Europe, Before 
1839 England, Prussia, and Austria had, in greater or less 
degree, controlled the labor of children,' though to but 
little effect in the last-named country, where the day of 
labor was still cruelly long, frequently reaching to fifteen 
hours, exclusive of meals, and sometimes to seventeen.'' 

French factory legislation dates from 1841. By the 
act of that year (March 22d) children were not to be ad- 
mitted to factories under eight years of age. They were 
only to work eight hours in the twenty-four up to twelve 
years, and twelve hours from twelve years to sixteen. 
They were not to work at night, with a few exceptions in 
the case of children above thirteen, or to work at all on 



' L. Horner, Employment of Children, p. 45, cf. p. 54. 
» Ibid, p. 105. 



EUROPEAN FACTORY ACTS. 361 

Sundays or holidays. School attendance was required 
up to twelve years. The number of children in 18T0 
working subject to this act was about 100,000, nine-tenths 
of these being employed in spinning and weaving facto- 
ries.' May loth, 1874, a new law of much greater range 
and higher efficiency was passed by the ISTational Assem- 
bly. By this act children under ten years of age can not 
be admitted to work in factories, mines, or shops ; from 
ten to twelve years they can work only in certain indus- 
tries to be specially designated by a government commis- 
sion, and they only work for six hom's in the day ; from 
twelve years onwards they are not to M^ork in excess of 
twelve hours a dsij. Until sixteen years of age they are 
not to work at night. No child can be admitted to 
work in mines under twelve years, and no female at 
any age. Universal primary instruction is provided by 
the law, and a rigid inspection of all establishments in 
which children are employed.^ 

In Belgium there has been no legislation protective of 
children since the decree of 1813, which prohibited their 
employment under ten years of age in mines. 

In Germany, by the Industrial Code of April 6th, 1869 
(p. 127-132), the age of admission to labor is fixed at 
twelve years ; from twelve to fourteen, children can be em- 
ployed but six hours a day ; from fourteen to sixteen, but 
ten hours, with two intervals of rest. ]^ight-labor is pro- 
hibited. School-attendance and factory-inspection are rig- 
idly enforced. 

In Switzerland the age of admission varies according 
to the character of the industry pursued ; in some twelve 
years, in others thirteen, in others fourteen.^ 

' Report of Mr. Malet on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of 
France. 

2 For the text of this law see the work published by MM. Tallon 
and Maurice in 1875, Legislation sur le Travail des Enfants, pp. 
445-53. 

^ See the work of MM. Tallon and Maurice, p. 34. 



3G2 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

• 

In Italy there are no laws relating to tlie employment 
of cliildren in factories, but children under ten years are 
not permitted to work in mines.' 

In Sweden, by royal statute of June 18th, 1864, 
cliildren under twelve years are not allowed to work in 
factories, nor any person under eighteen years to be em- 
ployed at niglit.^ 

In Spain and Portugal no laws exist respecting the age 
at which, or the number of hours in the day for which, 
children shall be employed. 

In Russia and in Holhmd there were, according to the 
British Consular Reports of 18 T3 relative to Textile Fac- 
tories, no laws regulating or restricting the labor of chil- 
dren.' Mr. Walsham reported that in the JSTetherlands 
children were employed so young that they could earn but 
a shilling a week. Mr. Egerton reported that in Russia 
thirteen hours a day was the general average of the fac- 
tories, the children working as long as the men. 

Y. Sympathy and respect for labor in the community. 

It is at this point that we traverse most completely the 
orthodox political economy. There has been no end of 
contemptuous ridicule, or grave rebuke from the profes- 
sors of the science, and from reviews and journals es- 
pecially affecting that character, towards those who have 
assumed that a friendly public opinion could effect any 
substantial improvement in the condition of the work- 
ing classes. " It is not unusual," says Mr. McLeod, " to 
hear persons of benevolence who see the shocking misery 
which even now prevails among so many in this country, 
exclaim that employers ought to pay higher wages. 
But all such ideas are' visionary."* 

Especially has the agitation respecting the wages of 
women been deprecated as useless or mischievous. We 

' Report of Mr. Herries, 1871, p. 284. 

'-' Report, of Mr. Goslinn; on Textile Factories. 1873, p. 116. 

'' P. G6 (Mr. V7alsham) ; p. Ill (Mr. Egerton). 

' Pol. Econ., pp. 211, 212. 



PUBLIC OPINION AFFECTS WAGES. 363 

are told that "the inexorable laws of supply and de- 
mand" determine the rate of wages; that benevolence 
has no more to do here than with the operations of the 
steam-engine ; that competition is tlie one irresistible, 
mirelenting force which overbears all considerations of 
compassion or charity, and works out a predetermined re- 
sult with unerring certainty. Who is not familiar with 
these phrases ? 

The man would be weak or ignorant Avho should ex- 
pect that any but the most exceptional and eccentric of 
mortals would at any given time pay more than the 
market rate of wages, or should look upon such possible 
exhibitions of disinterested philanthropy as likely to set 
a fasliion to be followed by the shrewd, eager, and bnt lit- 
tle unselfish men who make up tlie mass of employers. 
But the question is, whether the force we here invoke 
may not help to fix that very market rate of wages. It is 
not asserted that this sympathy and respect entertained for 
labor by the general community need ever be distinctly 
present in the consciousness, as a motive to individual or 
class for advancing wages. Bat I base the proposition 
that these do constitute one condition of a right distribu- 
tion of the products of industry, upon accepted principles 
of moral philosophy, supported by inferences, which ap- 
pear to me conclusive, from economic statistics of wide 
range and undoubted authority in a kindred department 
of industrial contract. 

First, of the reason of the case. Let us recall the prin- 
ciple so frequently insisted on, that it is only as competi- 
tion is perfect that the wages class have any security that 
they will receive the highest remuneration which the ex- 
isting conditions of industry will permit; that in the 
failure of competition they may be pushed down grade 
after grade in the industrial as in the social scale, there 
being almost no limit to the possible degradation of the 
working classes Avhere a free circulation of labor is 
denied. Let us recall, moreover, that the failure of com- 



364 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

petition may be due to moral as mueli as to physical 
causes ; that if the workman from any cause does not pur- 
sne his interest, he loses iiis interest, whether he refrain 
from bodily fear, from poverty, from ignorance, from 
timidity and dread of censure, or from the effects of bad 
political economy M'hich assures him that if he does not 
seek his interest, his interest will seek him. Let us bear in 
mind, moreover, that it matters nothing whether compe- 
tition fails in his case because lie does not begin to seek a 
better market, or, having begun, gives np in discourage- 
ment. 

Now, I ask, can it be doubtful that the respect and 
sympathy of the community must strengthen the wages 
class in this unceasing struggle for economical advan- 
tages ; must give weight and force to all their reasonable 
demands ; must make them more resolute and patient in 
resisting encroachment ; must add to the confidence with 
which each individual laborer will rely on the good faitli 
of those who are joined with him in his cause, and* make 
it harder for any weak or doubtful comrade to succumb 
in the contest? 

And, on the other hand, will not the consciousness that 
the whole community sympathize with the efforts of 
labor to advance its condition by all fair means, inevit- 
ably weaken the resistance of the employing class to 
claims which can be conceded, diminish the confidence 
with which each employer looks to his fellows to hold out 
to the end, and make it easier for the less resolute to re- 
tii'e from the contest and grant, amid general applause, 
what has been demanded ? He must be more than liu- 
man or less than human who is uninfluenced by the 
friendly or the cold regards of men. 

And if such a disposition of the public mind must con- 
firm the union and exalt the courage and sustain the faith 
of the party that hears everywhere approving words, 
meets everywhere looks of sympathy, and must tend to 
impair somewhat, at least, the mutual trust -*nd common 



POPULAR SYMPATHY WITH LABOR. 365 

resolution of their opponents, who shall saj that wages 
may not be affected thereby ? 

Let ns apply these principles to an individual case. 
Hodge thinks — Hodge is a ploughman, and has been get- 
ting twelve shillings a week — that he ought to have more 
wages ; or, rather — for Hodge would scarcely put it so 
abruptly — he feels that it is dreadfully hard to live on 
twelve shillings. He has attended a lecture delivered by 
Mr. Joseph Arch, from a wagon on the green. He is 
uneasy, and wants to improve his condition. So far, 
then, he is a hopeful subject economically. The desire 
to improve one's condition is the sine qua non of compe- 
tition. Will these stirrings of industrial ambition comer 
to any thing ? Will this little leaven of unrest leaven the 
whole of the very lumpish lump christened Hodge ? 
Will the discontented ploughman seek and find his bet- 
ter market ? This is a great question, for upon the an- 
swer to it depends the future of Hodge, and perhaps of his 
sons and grandsons. Let the Spectator' tell how he is 
assisted on his way and encouraged in his weak, ignorant, 
doubting mind by landlord, bishop, and judge. 

" The man has been, so to speak, morally whipped for 
six months. He has found no friend anywhere, except in 
a press he can neither read nor understand. The duke 
has deprived him of liis allotment ; the bishoj) has rec- 
ommended that his instructor should be ducked ; the 
squire has threatened him with dismissal in winter ; 
the magistrate has fined him for quitting work, which is 
just, and scolded him for listening to lectures, which is 
tyranny ; the mayor at Evesham has prohibited him from 
meeting on the green ; and the lawyer — witness a re- 
cent case near Chelmsford — has told him that any one 
who advises and helps him to emigrate is a hopeless 
rascal." 

IS'ow, I ask, is Hodge quite as likely to pursue his in- 

' August 4tli, 1873. 



366 THE WAGE 8 QUESTION. 

terest and psrsist in whatever that requires, as if his 
social superiors and the men who should be his instructors 
and helpers were enconraging him to better his fortune 
if he finds a chance, instead of telling him that if he de- 
mands more wages, he is kicking against the wage-fund, 
and that if he kicks against the wage-fund, he is defying 
an ordinance of heaven ; or as if the law were adminis- 
tered occasionally by men indifferent' in the dispute 
between himself and ]iis employer; as if the shop-keeper 
and the publican and the lawyer and tlie rector were not 
all ranged against him ? Is it not possible that, for the 
lack of a little fanning, the feeble flame iu Hodge's breast 
Inay die out, and he, giving np all thoughts of seeking 
his fortune elsewhere, return to his furrow, never to stray 
from it again ? And so vale, Hodge ! 

Political economy, says Mr. Mill, is concerned witli man 
" solely as a being who desires to possess wealth, and who 
'x) is capable of judging of the comparative efficacy of 
meansfor obtaining that end. . . . It makes entire abstrac- 
tion of every other human passion or motive except those 
which may be regarded as perpetually antagonizing prin- 
ciples to the desire of wealth — namely, aversion to labor 
and desire of the present enjoyment of costly indulgences," 
Among beings thus constituted, doubtless competition 
would prove " inexorable." But, surely, economists should 
be careful how they apply to mankind as they are, conclu- 
sions which they have deduced from the study of such a 
monstrous race, made up entire of laziness and greed, in- 
capable of love or hate or shame. 

Abstract every other human passion and motive ! elimi- 
nate respect and sympathy! Why, who can say how 
largely this vkry love of wealth is due to the unwilling- 
ness to be thought meanly of by our fellow-men, or the 
more positive desire to excite their envy or admiration ? 

'As I understand it, no man in England can be a justice of tlie 
peace unless he have an estate of £100 a year in land. 



A 



PUBLIC OPINION INFLUENCES RENTS. 367 

And if regard for the opinions of otliers may be a suffi- 
cient reason, as we know it is, for men to exert tliemselves 
laboriously and painfully, why may it not be a reason for 
men to forbear* to press their power and their undoubted 
rights to the point of cruelty ? 

As this subject is of prime importance, I beg my 
reader's indulgence in making an excursion into another 
department of political economy — namely, that of rent — -to 
see if we may not find there evidence of the influence of 
this very cause which we have invoked in aid of labor. 
If competition is " inexorable ;" if the laws of supply 
and demand are "immutable;" if the desu^e of gain is an 
all -controlling passion, these things ought to be found so 
in the department of rent as truly as in the department of 
wages. As we must make a selection, let us take three 
countries whose land systems have been carefully studied ; 
countries in which peasant proprietorship is found in an 
exceptionall}^ small degree, and where, consequently, the 
question of rent becomes of the highest importance to the 
welfare of the people. These are England, Italy, and 
Ireland. 

In England, Prof. Thorold Hogers declares, rents have 
remained at a point much below that to which com- 
petition alone would carry them. The vaunted gene- 
rosity of land-owners is, he says, " really the necessity of 
the situation. Englishmen would not tamely acquiesce 
in a practice which continually revalued their occupancies 
and made their own outlay the basis for an enhanced rent. 
The rent of agricultural land is therefore seldom the 
maximum annual value of the occupancy ; in many cases, 
is considerably below such an amount."" Again he says : 

' Mr. Tremenlieere, in his testimony on truck before the Committee 
of 1854 on the Payment of Wages, says : "I believe, from all that I 
have heard in different mininor-districts, that, as a rule, the large com- 
panies, and the persons who are amenable to puhlic opinion among gen- 
tlemen, do not resort to those petty and indirect modes of cheating their 
workmen." (Report, p. 40.) 

^ Cobden and Political Opinion, p. 94. 



^ 



368 THE WAGES QUESTION 

" The tenant is virtually protected by the disreputable 
publicity which would be given to a sudden eviction or a 
dishonest appropriation of the tenant's improvements." ^ 

In Italy we find local usages respecting land nearly all- 
powerful, though exceptions exist of provinces where 
competition^ has entered to enhance rents. " The same 
misfortune," says Sismondi, in writing of Tuscany, 
" would probably have befallen this people ii public opinio7i 
did not protect the cultivator ; but a proprietor would not 
dare to impose conditions unusual in the country ; and 
even in changing one metayer for another, he alters no- 
thing of the terms of the engagement." 

The third country I have taken is probably the only one 
of Western Europe to which we could turn as affording 
an example of rents kept at the point to which unre- 
strained competition would carry them. And if we ask 
why it M^as that the " laws of supply and demand " proved 
liere indeed " inexorable," we find not contradiction but 
corroboration of our principle. It is not necessary to go 
far back in the history of Ireland to show why it v/as that 
nothing intervened here to prevent the tenantry from be- 
ing ground down by uninterinitted competition. It was 
because sympathy and confidence and lAutiial respect^ 

'Pol. Econ., p. 184. 

''Is it said, You are speaking of a failure of competition as if it 
were favorable to a beneficial distribution of property ? I answer, 
Absolute competition, equal on both sides, is the single condition of a 
perfect distribution. But if the laborers are disabled from competition 
by ignorance, poverty, or other cause — as the laborers of so many coun- 
tries are, in the mass — then it is merciful that public opinion or the 
force of law enters to prevent them from b-ing crushed, as they would 
be, in their inertia if competition remained in full force on the mas- 
ter's side. Competition to be beneficial must be exerted like the pres- 
sure of the atmosphere — everywhere and uniformly. 

^ " The landlord of an Irish estate inhabited by Roman Catholics is 
a sort of despot who yields obedience, in whatever concerns the poor, 
to no law but that of his will. . . . Nothing satisfies him but an 
unlimited submission. Disrespect, or any thing tending toward sauci- 
ness, he may punish with his cane or his horse-wLip with the most 



i 



BENTS m IRELAND. 369 

were unknown between tlie two classes of tlie population. 
It was not merely that tlie land-owners of Ireland and its 
peasantry were of different races, of different religions/ 
and, to no small degree, of different speech — distinctions 
in themselves of tremendous moment. There was more 
than this and worse than this in Ireland. The title of the 
landlord was from conquest' and confiscation, and to sus- 
tain an original wrong had required a system of legal 
discrimination and proscription, of which the judicious 
Hallam says : " To have exterminated the Catholics by 
the sword, or expelled them like the Moriscoes of Spain, 
would have been little more repugnant to justice and hu- 
manity, but incomparably more politic." ^ 

It is' thus that Macaulay describes the relations of the 
Saxon and the Celtic inhabitants of Ireland in 1685 : " On 
the same soil dwelt two populations locally intermixed, mor- 
ally and politically sundered. The difference of religion 
was by no means the only difference, or even the chief 
difference. They sprang from different stocks ; they 
spoke different languages. They had different national 
characters, as strongly opposed as any two national charac- 
ters in Europe. They were in widely different stages of 
civilization. Between two such populations there could 
be little sympathy ; and centuries of calamities and wrongs 
had generated a strong antipathy. The relation in which 
the minority stood to the majority resembled the relation 
in which the followers of William the Conqueror stood to 

perfect security. A poor man would have his bones broken if he 
offered to lift his hands in his own defence. . . . The execution of 
the laws lies tiery much in the hands of justices of the 'peace, many of 
whom, are draion f'^om the most illiberal class in the kingdom." — Ar- 
thur Young, Tour in Ireland (Pinkerton's Travels, iii. 887, cf. p. 816.) 

' Of three great divisions of Ireland — Leinster, Munster, and Con- 
naught — Mr. O'Connor Morris says: " Probably seven eighths of the 
land belong to a proprietary of Protestants, and perhaps even a greater 
proportion of the occupiers are Roman Catholics." (The Land Ques- 
tion of Ireland, p. 231.) 

^ Constitutif^nal F'story of England, iii. 383. 



370 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

the Saxon cliurls, or tlie relation in which tjie followers 
of Cortes stood to the Indians of Mexico.'" 

This truly is a state of things in which we might look 
with confidence to find the law of supply and demand 
" inexorable," and so, in these circumstances, it proved. 
The improvidence and ignoi'ance of the peasantry concur- 
ring, rents were advanced by the acquisitive and aggres- 
sive passion of the land-holding class, unchecked by public 
sentiment or generally by individual kindness, until Lord 
Devon's commission, in 1844, found that in numerous 
cases the nominal rent of land was greater than the money 
^ value of the annual produce, the tenant being kept there- 
by perpetually in debt to the landlord, whose interest it 
became to allow him, thus involved, to remain upon the 
^soil.' 

JSTow, I desire not to disparage the influence of other 
causes in bringing about this result, but I can not think that 
the history of the land in Ireland would have been what 
w^e know it was, had the landlord and tenant classes con- 
stituted one proper population, with ties of a common 
speech, faith, and blood, having equal rights before the 
law, and with those kindly feelings which, for all that is 
evil in us, are more natural between men and classes of 
men, than distrust and dislike. And even with such a 
miserable relation as existed between the two classes of 
the Iribli population, I, for one, do not believe that such a 
miserable result would have been possible, had not so large 
a portion of the land-owners been absentees,^ conducting 
their exactions through agents selected and rewarded for 
their success in wringing money from the soil, seeing and 

' History of Entjland, chap. vi. 

\ . - " The Irish peasantry were incomparably worse off than the French 

' peasantry Avere before the Revolution." — Prof. Rogers, Pol. Econ. 180. 

^ " I am aware that, in the view of political economy as taught liy 

writers of the hypothetical school, an absent landlord is identical with 

a landlord present ; just as, by Mr. Mill's definition, Simon Magus 

and Simon Peter, John of Cappadocia and John the Baptist, are exact 

economical equivalents " — Adlress at Amherst, 1874. ' 



BE8PECT AND SYMPATHY FOR LABOR. 371 

hearing notliing of the wretchedness they caused, and 
drowning all misgivings in the revelry of foreign capitals. 

Time would fail to trace the course of that improve- 
ment in the condition of the people which, by general 
admission, has taken place in Ireland since 1850. Here, 
again, I desire not to disparage the influence of other causes, 
but I can not doubt that some part of the beneficial result 
observed has been clue, first, to the great liberalizing and 
ameliorating movement throughout the kingdom, which 
threw down so many of the old hateful distinctions of faith 
and class ; a movement in which the reform of the crimi- 
nal code. Catholic emancipation, the suffrage act of 1832, 
the repeal of the j)enal acts against Jews and Dissenters, 
and the abolition of the corn-laws — each was at once effect 
and cause of new effects ; a movement which was felt 
latest in Ireland because Ireland had been so widely and 
deeply sundered in interest and feeling ; and, secondly, to 
the remorse and shame and pity which were awakened by 
the disclosures of Lord Devon's commission, followed 
close by that horrible and sickening demonstration, the 
Famine of 1846-7, which bronght home to every man and 
woman in the United Kingdom, in images never to fade 
from view, the wrongs and miseries of Ireland. If the 
peasantry of the Green Isle are better off to-day than a 
generation ogo, it is due, not alone to the general indus- 
trial advances of the intervening period, or to the migra- 
tion of surplus labor, if, indeed, that labor was ever truly 
in excess, but also, and in no small part, to the happy 
change which has passed over the moral relations of land- 
lord and tenant. 

If, then, after so brief a survey we find public opinion 
operating tluis powerfully in the department of Rent, are 
we not justified in the assertion that it must also be opera- 
tive in some degree in Wages ? 

I do not, be it observed, claim that wages can be en- 
hanced by any but economical causes ; I merely assert that 
respect for labor and sympathy with the body of laborers. 



373 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

on the part of tlie general cominuiiity, const,itnte an eco- 
nomical cause, in just so far as tliev strengthen the laborer 
in his pursuit of liis own interest, thus making competi- 
tion on his part more elfective, and in just so far as they 
take something from the severity with which the employer 
insists upon his innnediate interest, thus reducing tlie 
force of competition on that side, making it more nearly 
equal to that wdiich the laborer, poor, fearful, and ignorant, 
may be able to oppose. 



WOMAN 8 WAGES. 

It is in the partial failure of the condition on which I 
have here dwelt so much at length that we find one impor- 
tant cause of the in adecpiate wages of women. 

But first as to the fact of wages inadequate to the ser- 
vice performed. Nothing is more commoii than the asser- 
tion, in print, that women are paid but one half or one 
third as much as men for performing the same w^ork. 
Such assertions are generallv based on a misconception of 
the actual constitution of industrial society. Because a 
woman working in a woollen factory receives but twelve 
shillings a week while a man gets twenty-four, it can not 
properly be said that the latter receives twice as much for 
doing the same work, since the work done in a factory is 
of many kinds, making A'ery different demands upon the 
operatives in the respects of strength, skill, and intelli- 
gence, and hence jnstly remunerated at very different 
rates, from threepence a day, it may be, to as many shil- 
lings. And if we inquire, we shall find that women in a 
w^oollen factory are in fact rarely engaged upon the same 
kind of work as tlie men. Thus in an account of the organi- 
zation of a representative establishment given in the Sta- 
tistical Journal, where the number and sex of the opera- 
tives of each class are stated, and the wages paid to each, 
I note that all the hand-loom weavers are men, all tlie 
power-loom weavers women. And I also note what is 
significant, that the wages of the men employed as hand- 



WOMAJ^'S WAGES. 373 

loom weavers are much nearer women's wages than the 
wages of the men employed in any other department of 
the factory. 

in. the same way, in his history of the cotton manu- 
facture, published a generation ago, Mr. Baines stated 
that large departments were then entirely given up to 
women and children. ISTow, clearly, as Mr. Baines re- 
marks, "that which is only a child's labor can be remimer- 
ated only by a child's wages." We have seen that the 
employer can not pay in wages more than he may fairly 
look to get back in the ]3rice of his products. Hence the 
fact that a woman may require more to subsist upon than 
a twelve-year-old boy affords no economical reason why 
she should receive more wages if she only does the same 
kind of work. 

But even though women performed the same kind of 
work as men, receiving therefor wages less than men, it 
would not follow, as of course, that their wages were in- 
adequate to their service. The differences existing in re- 
spect to the efficiency of labor, both on the side of work 
and on the side of waste, have been seen (Chapter III.) to 
be very great as between laborers actually employed in 
the same operation. Hence it might be true that a man 
and a woman working at the same table, upon the same 
material, with the same implements, or laboring side by 
side in the fields,' should receive wages in -sery dif- 
ferent amounts, and yet their respective services be most 
exactly recompensed. 

lN"ow, there are reasons, some of a social and some of a 
physiological nature, for the services of women, as a body, 
being in a degree less desirable to employers than those of 
men. The physiological reasons have been well stated by 
Dr. Ames in his recent book, Sex in Industry. These 
are suflfieient totally to debar women from many occupa- 

* It may fairly be assumed, for instance, that the ratio between tlie 
avera<!;e value of male and of female serfs in Russia employed in agri- 
culture before tlie emancipation — namely, £50 and £17 respectivelv 
(Statistical Journal, xxiii. 379) — fairly represented the relative worch to 
the owner of the two kinds of labor. 



374 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

tions, and greatly to reduce their efficiency in others.' 
Among social reasons we may adduce the generally less 
practical education which girls receiv'e as compared witli 
that given to boys, and the almost universal expectation of 
domesticity which is inherent and ineradicable in the con- 
stitution of woman, interfering not only with her prepara- 
tion for active pursuits, but also with her prosecutiun of 
them, because it reduces the singleness of purpose and in- 
terest with which her duties are discharged, and depreci- 
ates in the eyes of her employer, and justly so, the value 
of services which may abruptly be terminated by mar- 
riage, Nor are these industrial disabilities to be wholly 
cured by any cause that shall not disrupt and destroy so- 
ciety. Just so long as girls grow up in the belief that their 
mission is not to work in a shop, but to adorn a home, 
their education will take shape accordingly. Parents and 
school-boards may lay out courses of study with never so 
much of utilitarian intention, the mind of the girl will se- 
crete sweetness and grace from whatever food is offered 
it. And just so long as the same tender illusion lasts — and 
we know it will outlast much bitter experience — woman 
will serve distraite, if not unhappy, as one who has a 
name she has not yet taken, a city to which she has not 
come. If a man marries, he as a rule becomes a better 
and more stable workman on that account. If a Avoman 
marries, it is most prob^We that she will leave her employ- 
ment ; it is almost certain that if she remains she will be 
a less desirable laborer than before. This expectation 
of domesticity is always likely to exist with greater or less 
force in the female mind, and will inevitably, wherever it 
exists, I'educe the efficiency of female labor. 

Yet though there is thus much misapprehension of the 
relation between the wages of women and those of men, 
there can, I think, be no question that the wages of the 

* Mr. Biassey states that in the construction of the Lemberfi: ancl 
Czernowitz railway, in some places half ilio people employed were vvo- 
nien, wlio earned 1.60 francs a day, while the men eaiBed from two to 
three francs. (Work and Wages, p. 105.) 



WOMAIf'8 WAGES. , 375 

former' are in a degree inadequate to the service rendered, 
after due allowance for all differences of amount and 
quality. If there be such inadequacy, the sole cause 
must, as we have seen (Chapter X.), be found in the fail- 
ure of competition. 

Inasmuch as the failure of competition comes mainly 
through the immobility of labor, let us inquire whether 
female labor is under any exceptional disabilities in respect 
to movement. 

In the first place, it needs to be observed that women 
have far more occasion, relatively, to move to the labor- 
market than men, and have need, therefore, to be far 
more mobile and active. This is due to the fact that the 
industries for which women are physiologically suited are 
highly localized. Wherever there is population, there are 
women who feel the necessity of working outside their 
own families for subsistence : yet the opportunities 
for their employment in mechanical work are found 
only here and there. Thus, in Allegheny County, 
Pennsylvania, we find that there were in 1870^ 29,139 
men employed in mechanical labor, and but 1723 
women ; in Erie County, ]^ew-York, 11,357 men and but 
960 women; in Wayne Coimty, Michigan, 11,543 men 
and but 1454 women ; in St. Louis County, Missouri, 
32,484 men and but 3455 women ; in Cook County, Il- 
linois, 24,705 men and but 4652 women ; in Cuyahoga 
County, Ohio, 8698 men and but 791 women. On the other 
hand, there were 5887 women employed in Hillsborough 
County, ISTew-Hampshire, against 7627 men ; in Andros- 
coggin and York Counties, Maine, respectively 4045 and 
4512 women against 3908 and 3689 men. These are only 

^ " It is a curious fact that in tlie great majority of occupations, the y 
average wages of a boy, a woman, and a girl added together amount 
to those of a man." — Dudley Baxter, National Income, p. 49. 

Lord Brabazon gives the averaore daily pay of French day-laborers in 
agriculture as one franc seventy-five centimes for men, eighty-five cen- 
times for women, and sixty-three centimes for children ; but women 
and children are employed for only a fraction of a year. 

•^ Ninth census of the United States (Industry and Wealth, table 
ix. A). 



376. THE WAGES QUESTION. 

given as instances to show liow irregularly and liow rarely 
at the best, the opportunities for the employment of 
women in mechanical industry occur. An examination 
of the statistics of industry in the United States discloses 
that of the women employed in mechanical pursuits, forty- 
two per cent are found in only seven counties, comprising 
but seven per cent of the population of the country. 

While women have thus far more occasion relatively to 
move to their market than men, we find them disabled 
therefrom, in a great measure, by physical weakness, by 
timidity, and by those liabilities to misconstruction, insult, 
and outrage which arise out of their sexual characteris- 
tics. Having more need than men to be free to move 
from place to place, they have far less ability to do so. It 
must be remembei'ed that it is not a question merely of 
taking a journey from home to a place where a " situation" 
has already been engaged, but, it may be, of seeking out 
employment from street to street, and from shop to shop, 
by repeated inquiries, and often through much urgency 
and persistency of application. This is what men have to 
do to " get a place," often going into doubtful localities, 
freely encountering strangers, and sleeping in casual com- 
pany. These, with men, are among tlie conditions of the 
mobility of labor which not only secures employment for 
the individual applicant, but relieves the pressure upon 
the market elsewhere, and oftentimes prevents that pain- 
ful or fatal "c(mgestion of labor" which breaks down 
wages, crushes the hopefulness and self-respect of the ope- 
rative class, and engenders habits of labormg and living 
which it may take long, even under favorable conditions, to 
wear -out of the industrial body. 

To state these conditions is to show some of the disad- 
vantages under which women have labored in the past 
from their natural indisposition and disqualification to en- 
counter strangers and make terms for themselves. I 
would not seek to idealize the sex in dealing with so plain 
and practical a matter. No one who has had to do witli 
book-agents of both sexes would unhesitatingly award the 
palm for persistency and assurance to the man ; while it 



WOMAIf'S WAGES. 377 

is proverbial tliat female venders of fish, iu all countries 
and ages, have succeeded so far in overcoming their native 
meekness and bashfulness as to qualify them fully to hold 
their own whether in a bargain or in a wrangle. ISTor would, 
it be just to speak of female labor anywhere as if it were ab- 
solutely immobile. Country girls have always gone to the 
city to find employment in shops and stores ; while the 
cotton factories and the boot and shoe shops of Massa- 
chusetts and Khode Island have always been filled with 
women from the rural parts of ISTew-England and even 
from the British Provinces. 

Yet, after all allowances that require to be made, it re- 
mains true that while, from the specialization and localiza- 
tion of the industries in which female labor is employed, 
women have far more occasion than men to keep them- 
selves free to seek their own market, they are in fact, from 
many causes, under serious disabilities in respect to move- 
ment from place to place,' with all which that implies for 
females poor and unj^rotected, and, it may be,' also igno- 
rant and fearful. 

While much of this disqualification of woman for seeking 
the labor-market arises out of her physiological conditions, 
and is not to- be cured by law or opinion, it is also true 
that no inconsiderable part has been due, in the ])ast, to a 
lack of respect and sympathy for her in her capacity as a 
laborer, if not to positive prejudice and even to actual phy- 
sical obstruction^ offered to her industrial movements. 

' The disability which women suffer on account of tlieir sex, when 
the conditions of industry require emigration from the country of their 
birth, may be seen from the following facts brought out by the Scotch 
census of 1871. Between 15 and 25 years of age there are 105.4 fe- 
males for every 100 males ; between 25 and 30 years tliere are 119.7 fe- 
males for every 100 males. (Report, pp. xvi, xvii.) 

^ " We can not forget that some years ago certain trades-unionists in 
the potteries imperatively insisted that a certain rest for the arm which 
they found almost essential to tlieir work, should not be used by wo- 
men engaged in the same employment. Not long since, the London 
tailors, when on a strike, having never admitted a woman to their 
union, attempted to coerce women from availing themselves of the 
remunerative employment wliicb was offered in consequence of the 
strike. But this jealousy of women's labor has not been entirely con- 



378 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

Of the insults and violence not infrequently offered to 
women seeking employment in departments of industry 
which men have chosen to regard as exclusively their 
own, it is not necessary to speak. Women scarcely need this 
to restrain them from pursuing their economical interests. 
Intensely sensitive to opinion/ they shrink from the faint- 
est utterances of blame ; while coldness and indifference 
alone are often sufficient to repress their impulses to 
activity. 



fined to workmen. The same feeling lias extended itself through every 
class of society. Last autumn a large number of Post-Office clerks ob- 
jected to the employment of women in the Post-Office." — Henry Faw- 
cett, House of Commons, July 30th, 1873. (Speeches, p. 133, 134.) 

" An important strike is now going on in the town of Leicester, and 
what is the cause of it? Certain manufacturers Avished to introduce 
women into their factories, and tlie men claimed a right not only to 
determine the price of Uxbnr, but also on what conditions womi-n should 
be permitted to work. Nor is this all. Within the last fortnight 
there has been a great meeting of delegates of the Agricultural Labor- 
ers' Union. Women were not admitted. Why? On the express ground 
that the agricultural laborers of this country do not wish to recognize 
the labor of women." — Ibid, June 33d, 1874. (TheNews' Report.) 

* In their report made to the Local Government Board in 1873, Dr. 
Brydges and -Mr. Holmes take note of the peculiar sensitiveness of 
female laborers to the praise or blame of their employers or overseers : 
" It would appear, from statements made to iis which we liave reason 
to think accurate, that it is very much easier to bring pressure to bear 
upon the energies of female operatives than of male. It is well known 
that with many workmen, especially if they be members of trades- 
unions, the consciousness that their fellow-workmen are present and 
are watching their work, tends ra'her to moderate than to intensify 
their zeal. Animated by the common object of selling their labor 
dear, they are apt to think an exceptionally zealous workman a traitor 
to the cause- of labor. With women the reverse would seem to be the 
case. Le.ss able to fix their eyes upon a distant object, less apt to enrol 
themselves in a well-drilled organization for which sacrifices are to be 
made, the ultimate compensation for which themselves and those im- 
mediately connected with them may never, or not for a long time, 
touch, they are far more keenly sensitive to the motives of approbation 
and vanity, and also to those of immediate tangible reward. It would 
seem to be as easy to goad women as it would be difficult to goad men 
into doing the greatest amount of piece-work in a giviJn time. The 
admiration of their companions and the approbation of the overlooker 
appear to be at least as powerful inducements as the increase of their 
wages." (Report, p. 20.) 



WOMAIi'JS WAGES. ' 379 

This unfortunate result — namely, a public opinion un- 
favorable, or less favorable than is desirable, to the exten- 
sion of female labor — is doubtless due in some part to the 
comparative newness of the occasion which women have to 
enter the general market of labor, from which it results 
that their entrance is not unnaturally greeted by the body 
of male laborers interested therein as an intrusion threat- 
ening a reduction of their own wages, while the outside 
community, though disinterested, remains indifferent, not 
having been educated up to the point of giving women a 
warm and strong moral support in their efforts to find em- 
ployment, and of providing adequate protection to them 
in. the casual and often rude encounters which the search 
for employment may involve. 

The necessity for the employment of women in wage- 
labor not agricultural, in any thing like the extent whicli 
exists at present, dates from the decay of the system of 
domestic manufactures which followed the extensive intro- //' 
duction of machinery in the latter part of the eighteenth 
century. " The original artisans," says Mr. Mill, " were 
either slaves or the women of the family." ' It was the 
women who wove and spun, fashioned and sewed, the gar- 
ments, the blankets, and the nets of our ancestors. It is 
true we occasionally find record of women earning wages 
in other occupations.^ Prof. Rogers has pointed out that, 
in the fourteenth century, the thatcher's help, or " homo," 
was generally a woman.' But, speaking broadly, there 
was, until the inventions of Watt, Hargreaves, and 
Arkwright anticpated the distaff and the spinning-wheel, 
work enough within the house for all the women of the 
family if we except the harvest season, when agriculture 
was, as it is to-day in Europe, the occupation, and in 
Russia the equal occupation, of both sexes.* 

1 Pol. Econ., i. 285. 

^ Brewing and baking were formerly purely domestic operations, 
and hence were performed by women, as the feminine termination of 
the words brew-ster and back-ster, like web-ster and spin-ster, indicates. 

^ By 37th Edward III. women were exempted from the prohibition 
against exercising more than one craft. 

* In European Russia exclusive of the Baltic Provinces the number 



V 



380 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

But no longer can the wife and dangliter, in a family 
■where children nnist needs go mainly uut-ared for, and 
housekeeping becomes reduced to the niininium by the 
scantiness at once of space and of food, do their equal 
share, or at an}' rate seem to do their equal share, in the 
support of the household, within the house. All which 
now enters into domestic consumption must come in from 
without; and so wife and daughter must, or think tiiey 
must, go out and bring in a ])art of it. At the same time 
the extension of water and steam-power has made the labor 
of women useful in a thousand operations for which their 
strength was formerly inadequate.' This it is which has 
driven women into the labor-market. In families where 
bread comes hardly, the services of the house are fore- 
gone, and wife and daughter, no longer working as of 

of females engaged in agriculture is reported as 12,917,593 against 
13,444,843 males. In Prussia tlie number of fariu-laborcrs was re- 
ported, in 18G7, as follows : 1,054,313 females, 2,233,741 males. In 
England the eensus-tables show the following proportion between the 
sexes in agriculture : 183,450 females, 1,204,031 males. In Scotland 
the numbers are as follows : 50,464 females, 184,301 males. In the 
United States it is only among the late servile population of the South, 
and occasionally among recently-arrived foreigners at the extreme 
West, that women are seen laboring in the fields, even during the 
height of the harvest season. But women are probably nowhero em- 
ployed through so long a period in the year as men. Lord Brubazon 
(Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1873, p. 44) gives 
the number of days on which men are employed in France at day labor 
in agriculture, as 300 ; for women the number of days is but 130. In 
England, as Mr. Purdy says, women in agriculture are " employed as 
supernumeraries to the men, and are only taken on at busy times." 
Arthur Young gives the following account of the Palatines settled in 
Ireland : " The women are very industrious, reap the corn, i)longh the 
ground sometimes, and do whatever work may be going on ; they al^o 
spin and weave, and make the children do the same. . . . The industry 
of the women is a perfect contrast to the Irish ladies in the cabins, who 
can not be persuaded, on any consideration, even to make hay, it not 
being the custom of the country ; yet they bind corn and do other work 
more laborious." (Pinkerton, iii. 849, 850.) 

' "Whereas the workman," says M. Jules Simon, in L'Ouvnere, 
" was once an intelligent force, he is now only an intelligence direct- 
ing a force — that of steam — and the immediate consequence of the 
change hns been to replace men by women, because women are cheaper 
and can direct the steam force with equal efficiency." 



WOMA'N'H, WAGim. 



381 



old fr>r tlio 1io;ul of 11k; lioii^c, ^o out to Hook fitrango orrj- 
ployerH hm'J bo jostJod in jmMio j^luci-s. Sliaino on llio 
inaii, If Ik; b(; man, who wiJI nr^t ^';lH(Jly ^ivo tlK^rri j-ooiri ! 

(Join(;idently with this groat infJiiHtrial chango, involv- 
ing tho rieccHKity of vvivoH und daughtern conli-ibnting 
by wage labor to the Hii])port of tlic family, have oc- 
curred HOfJal chaiig(!S, of Hearcoly h;,ss impoi'tance, wliir;h 
have reHijlt(;d in a nteady increafjc in the j^roportion' of 
women who are wholly d(;pendent on themHelves for inain- 
tenariee. What tliese Hocial clianges arc I need not point 
out ; the result itBcIf is patent, palpable, and needs no proof. 

I have Hpoken of wife and daiigliter entering the mar- 
ket of wage la]>or, as a necessity resulting from the social 
and industrial, changes indicated. And so, in a melan- 
choly ])rofjoi-tion of cases, it is. Yet there can Ije little 
doubt that it is sometimes accepted as a necessity wliere 
more courage and patience and a broader view of self- 
interest would prove that this miglit be avoided ; and in 
such a case it would often Ije truer economy to forego 
wages to he earned at tho expense of leaving the house 
uncared for. " 1 iind," says Mr. Fi-asor, Assistant Corn- 
missionci' on tij(; Einployment of Women and Children in 
Agriculture, " that in my own parish, in J>erkshire, the 
women have a sort of proverb f hat ' there's only four- 
pence a year difference between what she gets who goes 



" TlioHO cauHOH oporatf! witli ruiicli ^Toator force in Homo countries 
tlian in otliorH. Tho fo)Io\vin;.j lal)l(; hIiowh tlio number of HpinHtfjrs 
in eaol) 100,000 women in Eiif^lanrl and in Scotland HeveralJy, as hy 
tho census of 1871, 1 only insert the figures for the period 30-05. 



Period of Life. 


England. 


Scotland. 


Period of Life. 


England. 


Scotland. 


20-25 
25-30 
30-35 
35-40 
40-45 


65,100 

35,022 
22.305 
10.844 
14,150 


73,790 
44,290 
30,145 
25,01 1 
31,800 


45-50 
50-55 
55-00 
00-05 


12,373 
11,094 
10,884 
10,905 


20,150 
19,917 
19,211 
20,343 



Eri^rlanrl annually cclubratos 83 marriagew for every 10,000 inliabi- 
tauts ; Swjtland only 70. 



383 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

out to work and what she gets who stays at home, and 
she loho stays at home wins it.'' " ' 

With something of exaggeration there is, no doubt, 
niucli of truth in this proverb of the Berkshire women. 
In the eagerness to increase the family income it is not 
sufficiently considered that, in the absence of the wife and 
mother, great loss must necessarily be sustained in the 
expenditure of that income ; and spcondly, that the ill- 
effects on the health of tlie family, on the duration of the 
laboring pow'er, and on the moral elements of industry 
may be sufficient in many cases to offset the nominal gain 
achieved by stripping the house of its service and depriv- 
ing the household of their proper care. The failure to 
appreciate that a penny saved is a penny earned, lies at 
the bottom of many a far-reaching mistake in domestic 
life as in productive industry. Waste in food, clothing, 
and utensils ; waste in laboring force through ill-prepared 
and ill-preserved food ; waste of the vital endowment of 
the rising generation through lack of that constant care 
which is the essential condition of well-being in child- 
hood ; waste of character and the formation of indolent 
and vicious habits through neglect to instruct and train 
the young, and through making the house cheerless and 
distasteful to the mature : the waste in these and many 
other forms which the entry of the wife and daughter on 
wage labor necessarily implies, in greater or less degree, 
will surely balance the addition of many shillings a week 
to the family income.* 

1 Report of 1867-8, p. 17, n. 

" The wear and tear of a neglected home," says Mr. R. Smith Baker, 
" is greater than the income which the wife's labor adds to the weekly 
means ; and he who can earn enough and to spare ought to feel it a 
degradation for the wife of his hosom to mingle in these dangerous 
assemblies. Moreover, a workingman's family is his wealth when 
well brought up ; his bane when sickly and unhealthy." 

^ The disposition to allow married women to undertake paid labor 
in pnblic places varies greatly in different communities. Mr. Carey in 
his Essay on Wages (1835) states that out of one thousand females in 
the Lawrence Factory at Lowell, there were but eleven married wo 



WOMAI^'S WAGES. 383 

Yet, after all, there is an increasing multitude of women 
who, through having no house to keep, or throngh the 
straitness of the family means, have no choice bnt to en- 
ter the mill or the shop, and submit to the rude hustlings 
of the marketplace — and room, has not been made for 
them. 

It may sound strangely that even in the United States, 
where it is of general consent that women are treated 
with higher relative consideration than in any other conn- 
try in the world, respect and sympathy for thein are want- 
ing in such a degree as to deprive them of any part of 
their equitable wages. I speak, however, of respect and 
sympathy for women as laborers. In their " sphere," to 
use the phrase which so exasperates the advocates of 
suffrage without regard to sex, women have always re- 
ceived homage and service, but as w^age-laborers in the 
public market they have suffered not a little in the past. 
This has not been from want of chivalry, but from defects 



men (p. 88, n.) The proportion in tliese later days is mucli greater. I 
am indebted to the Hon. Wm. P. Haines for the information that of 
1506 and 1203 persons employed respectively by the Pepperell Manu- 
facturing Company and by the Laconia Company, both of Biddeford, 
Me., engaged in cotton-spinning, 105 in the former and 135 in the lat- 
ter were married women. 

Much indisposition to allow the wife to go into the mill is seen in 
the flax and jute districts of Scotland. Of 784 women employed in the 
mills at Arbroath, only 5^ per cent were married. " It appears," say 
the commissioners of the Local Government Board (1873), " to be con- 
sidered somewhat discreditable for a woman to work in a factory after 
her marriage, and she does so only under the pressure of a stern ne- 
cessity." At the same time almost 28 per cent of the females of Scotland 
were actually bread-winners. This is due to the excess of spinsters 
previously noted. The married women employed in the textile manu- 
factories of England and Wales are estimated by Mr. W. C. Taylor, 
Inspector of Factories, at about 150,000 (Soc. Sc. Trans., 1874, p. 571). 
" Married women in factories are exceptional," says Mr. Phipps in his 
Eeport of 1870 on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of Wurtem- 
burg (p. 223). 

M. LePlay, in his work on the Organization of Labor, dwells strongly 
on the economical advantages of leaving the mother and daughter at 
the fireside. 



384 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

of education. The need that woman is coming to have, in 
modern life, to enter tlie competitions of industry, has not 
become snfficiently familiar to the public mind ; the idei 
lias been stran.^e, her image in such garb unwelcome.' 
That pnblic opinion which should open to her avenues of 
employment ; which shoidd be a strong support to her in 
her demands for fair remuneration ; which should be a de- 
fence to her in her close pursuit of employment, in her 
urgent and persistent application for work, in her neces- 
sary exposure to gaze and comment, and in her contact 
with much that is strange and rude, has not yet been cre- 
ated in such a degree as to give to the sex all that freedom 
of industrial movement which might be consistent with 
feminine purity and delicacy. We have not yet come to 
appi'eciatethe obligation which their necessity imposes upon 
us, as men and gentlemen, to follow them with our ear- 
nest, active sympathy, and to protect and champion them 
not less in their labor than at dance or festival. 

And what is the remedy ? Agitation and the diffusion 
of correct ideas. Let gifted women continue, as in the 
past, to appeal for public respect and sympathy for their 
sisters in their work ; let the schools teach that public opin- 
ion may powerfully affect wages, and that nothing which 
depends on human volition is " inexorable ;" let the sta- 
tistics of women's wages he carefully gathered and i:)ersist- 
ently held up to view. Efforts like these will not fail to 
strengthen and support woman in her resort to market, 
thus enabling her the better to realize the condition upon 
which alone she can expect to receive the highest wages 
which the existing state of industry will allow, 

' " Fancy," saya Miss Emily Faitlifull, "a gentleman seeking remu- 
nerative work sub rosa ! And yet this is the state of mind in which so 
many ladies come to our Industrial and Educational Bureau, that they 
even refuse to state their requirements to the lady manager, but insist 
upon seeing me personally on ' strictly private and confidential business.' 
Public opinion is to be blamed for this ; and unless the press will help 
us to strike a blow at the false pride now in our midst, parents will still 
neglect to place their daughters in honorable independs^bt positiona."— 
Letter to the London Times, 1876. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

MAT ANY ADVANTAGE BE ACQUIRED BY THE WAGES CLASS 
THEOUGH STEIKES OE TEADES-TJNIONS ? 

It was seen in our ana]ysis of the operation of competi- 
tion (Chapter X.) that the members of the wages class on 
their side, and the members of the employing class on 
theirs, act singly, each for himself, with individual spon- 
taneity ; and that out of this complete mobility of the 
individual, in subjection only to his own sense of his 
own interest, issue the highest conceivable industrial 
order and an absolutely right division of burdens and 
diffusion of benehts. 

The question in the present chapter is, whether, there 
being an acknowledged failure of competition, greater or 
less, on the side of the wages class, from ignorance, inertia, 
poverty, or the undue anxiety of individuals to snatch, 
each for himself, at the first employment offered, any 
thing can be added to the real power of this class in com- 
petition, through restraints voluntarily adopted. The 
perfect reasonableness of supposing that some advantage 
might be derived by the wages class from such arrano-e- 
mehts, will be seen if we compare their situation witli 
that of an audience seeking to escape from a crowded tlie- 
atre which has taken fire. There may be time enough to 
allow the safe discharge of every soul, and in that case 
the individual interest of each person clearly coincides 



willi llu' iiiti'fi't of till- Miulii'iuc lakfu fulli'i't i\(>lv — 
nmm'l\ , that lu> should fall in pi'i-i-isi'lv arcordiiin- to his 
presout .situation rrlativti to tho i-oiuuiou placo ot" exit. 
W^t ^\■^^ ktu>\v that, luuuau ii.atiii't^ beiiiti,- what it iv><, punio 
is liki'lv to ari^o and a cca/v rush cnsui', i-arh trying' to 
get hofon* lii.s nei«;hl»oi', with tho I'lTtain residl that tlio 
(lischargo of tho wliolo mass will ho inipodiul, and iho 
strong" ]>robabililv that not a fow will hi- tramploil to 
death. If now, n|>(»n men ii\ siieh a situation, diseiplino 
can hv imposed, and tlu^ piMeiulure which is for tl\t^ inte- 
rest ;dike o( ci\A\ .and of .all ran he allowed to go forward 
steadily, swiftly, ami snrt^ly muler authoritatiye dirtn-tion, 
a gre.at deal of nusery m.ay he preyt>nted, l)is('iplii\t*, n^- 
straint, ereateno foree, hut thev may sa\i> n\urh waste. 

In just such a situati*>n, t-ay those who are tho }>ri>fessetl 
adyoeates of the **eause of lahor," is the wagt>s class in 
tnany if mvt in most eomnumities, (Jrant th.at the true 
interest of each niend>er consists \vith the interest id' the 
w lu'le, no one will assert that each man's inten>st, as he 
may uiulerst:uid it :md he prepared to act on it, neces- 
sarily consists Nyith tho giHul oi .all. When industry 
slacki'ns and employment hocomes scarce, there is the 
same danger to tho mass, from the heailh>ng h.aste anil 
greed o( indiyiduals, as in the ease of the theatre just iv- 
ferred to. A mistaken sense of self-inten>st nuiy eyen 
peryert I'ompt^tition from its tnie ends, aiul make its force 
destructiyo. If, tluMi, it is urged, boilies id' labor c.an he 
]nit umhn" discipline so ihattluw shall proceed in i>riler and 
w ith ti'mpt>r, great injury may hv ayerted : injury which 
onoe wrought m.ay becinne peruunuMit. 

Tliere is, surely, ni>thing mtreasomtble in this i-laim. 
Let lis, therefoiH?, \vithout prejudice }>roceeil to consider 
the ag"eneios by \yhich, under this ]>lan, it is propi>.scd to 
meet thi^ infirmities i>f the Kabm-ing classes. 

The issiu' is not wlu>ther joint actioi\ is superior ti> the 
individual action ef persons eitlightened as lo their indus- 
tiial inti>rests, but whether joint action n\ay not Ih> better 



STRIKES AND THE WAOE^FUND. 387 

than the tumultuous action of a mass, each pursuing liis 
individual interest with more or less of ignorance, feai-, 
and passion. 

The question of strikes has generally been disposed of by 
economists with a summary reference to the doctrine of the 
wage-fund. Strikes could not increase the wage-fund, 
therefore they could not enhance wages. If they should ap- 
pear to raise the rate in any trade, this must be due either 
to a corresponding loss in the regularity of employment 
or to an equivalent loss, in regularity or in rate, by 
some other ti'ade or trades occupying a position of econo- 
mical disadv'antage. Hence, strikes could not benefit the 
wages class. But we have rid ourselves of the incubus of 
the wage-fund; and the Cjuestion of strikes is, therefore, 
with us an open question as yet. We have seen' that the 
amount of wages received by the laborer may be insuffi- 
cient to furnish the food necessary to his maximum effi- 
ciency, and that an increase of wages might, by increasino- 
his laboring power, increase the product not only propor- 
tionally, but even more than proportionally, under-feeding, 
whether of men or cattle, being admittedly false economy. 
If a strike should enable a body of laborers to secure such 
an advance against the reluctance of their employers, it 
might easily turn out that the masters would not only not 
be injured, but would be benefited in the result. The 
same would be true of an advance of wages which allow- 
ed the workmen to obtain more light and warmth and bet- 
ter air in more commodious dwellings. The same miirht 
prove to be the case with an advance of wages which 
merely stimulated the social ambition of the workmen, the 
wages of labor being, in the language of Adam Smith, 
" the encouragement of industry, which, like every other 
human quality, improves in proportion to the encourage- 
ment it receives." The same would probably be the re- 
sult, though after some delay, of an advance of wages 

^ Pp. 53-58. 



388 TUE WAGES QUESTION. 

wliich enabled workmen to send tlieir children to school, 
thus bringing them into the mill or shop, a few years later, 
far more intelligent and physically more capable than if 
they had been put at work at seven or eight years of age. 
It might easily prove, according to the principles which 
have been laid down respecting the efficiency of labor, that 
such expenditures would be found to be the best invest- 
ment which the employer ever made of the same amount 
of money, giving him industrial recruits of a much higher 
order. 

I might multiply illustrations showing how an advance 
of wages which masters were unwilling to concede, and 
which workmen through their isolated and mutually jea- 
lous and suspicious action would be unable to command, 
if effected through united action might prove to be for 
the interest of both masters and men. 

By others, again, the question of strikes is dismissed 
with the assertion that they generally fail of their objects. 
"Never, in any case," says Mr. E.. W. Hopper, "has an 
extensive strike resulted in an advance of wages.'" To 
a request to act in a mediation between masters and men, 
Lord Cranworth replied, " In the game, so to say, of com- 
bination the workmen eventually fail."" M. Theodore 
Fix, in his work Les Classes Ouvrieresj^ vrrites: "After 

' Fortnightly Review, August, 1865. 

" Statistical Journal, xxx. 5. 

' P. 194. 

Doubtless a much larger proportion of the earlier than of the 
later strikes in England were attended by immediate success. The 
reason may be presumed to be that, after the repeal of the Combinations 
Ads in 1824, the workmen struck simply for bread enough to eat. 
They had been held down by law and ground by an unequal competi- 
tion till they were reduced below the economical point of subsistence. 
As to this the testimony of all reports is unanimous. Strikes made 
for such a palpable cause are more likely to succeed than those which 
are made, as many of the later ones have been, for doubtful reasons, 
on ill-chosen occasions, or for the enforcement of trades-unions rules 



ABE STRIKES SUCCESSFUL? 389 

making vast sacrifices, the workmen almost invariably 
succumb." 

Granting that this is so in the sense in which the terms 
are used — that is, that in the great majority of cases work- 
men making a demand and seeking to enforce it by a strike, 
are beaten, and, after the exhaustion of their resources, have 
to go to work again on their master's terms ^ — is this quite 
conclusive of the whole question ? The argument used 
against strikes is, it will be observed, much the same as that 
which was formerly employed by reactionary essayists, and 
even admitted with reluctance by many liberal writers, in 
proof of the failure of the French Revolution. The States- 
General had been succeeded by the Assembly ; the Assembly 
by the Convention ; the Convention by the Directory ; the 
Directory had been turned out by the First Consul ; the 
First Consul had been made Consul for life ; the Consul 
had become Emperor ; the Emperor had been driven from 
France ; and after an interval of insolent foreign domina- 
tion, a legitimate prince, unrestrained by a single constitu- 
tional check, untrammelled by a single pledge, led back 
priest and noble, unforgiving and unforgetting, to resume 
their interrupted license. There had been revolution after 
revolution ; constitution after constitution ; there had been 
proscriptions, confiscations, and massacres ; there had been 
untold loss of blood and treasure; and in the end a king 
had returned who did not accept a constitution, but con- 
ferred a charter. 

It is not an inspiring thought that arguments like these 
were for a whole human generation held sufficient to prove 
that the French Kevolution was a mistake and a failure; 

wliicli must appear to any disinterested person as void of sense and 
against common justice. 

' Prof. Fawcett, in his Political Economy, lias collected a number of in- 
stances of strikes immediately successful. The best succinct account of 
the strike-movement in England which we have met is contained in 
Ward's Workmen and Wages. The same work also contains much infor- 
mation respecting strikes and trades-unions on the Continent of Europe. 



300 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

for we know now tliat the Bourbons were restored onlj in 
sesming ; that the restoration of the old regime was for- 
ever impossible. The king and the princes had indeed 
returned, the same race besotted with the vain conceit of 
div^ine right ; they led back, indeed, the same train of 
priests and nobles, untauglit and incapable of learning ; 
but they came back, not to the same, but to another 
France. Is it not conceivable that those who look on the 
submission of a body of laborers after a strike as a proof 
that their entire effort has been fruitless, may commit the 
sama mistake as those who looked on the return of 
Louis XVIII. as the restoi-ation of the Bourbons? But 
perhaps another insurrection, political in form but indus- 
trial in origin, Jiiay even better illustrate this point. I refer 
to the rising of the peasantry of England in the reign of 
Richard II. " The rehelUon,''' says Prof. Rogers,' " was put 
<loio)iy hut the demands of the villains were silently and 
effctualhj accorded / as they were masters for a weeh of 
the position^ the dread of another servile loar promoted 
th'i liberty of the serf?'' 

Strikes arc the insurrections of labor. Like insurrec- 
tions in the political body, they are a purely destructive 
agency. Tliere is no creative or healing virtue in them. 
Yet, as an insurrection may destroy political institutions 
which have ontlived their usefulness, and have become 
first senseless and then pernicious, thus clearing the way 
for an after-work of harmonious construction, so a strike 
m;iy have the effect to break up a crust of custom which 
h IS formed over the remuneration of a class of laborers, 
or to break through a combination of employers to with- 
stand an advance of wages, where the isolated efforts of 
the individuals of the wages class, acting with imperfect 
knowledge and under a fear of personal proscription, 
would be wholly inadequate to accomplish those objects. 

' Hist. Agr. and Prices, i. 8. 



JUSTIFICATION OF STRIKES. 391 

But a strike can only justify itself by its results. ^ Unless 
it is to make way for a better order, it is waste, and waste 
of the worse sort, since not only is a great loss of pro- 
duction incurred,^ but bad liabits are likely to be formed 
in a period of enforced idleness, and bad blood certain to 
be generated by tlie contest. 

Insurrections mark the first stages of the movement 
towards political freedom. Happy are the people who 
have got past insurrections, and can make their further 
progress " with even step and slow." Strikes are only of 
unquestionable utility in the first stages of the elevation 
of masses of labor long abused and deeply abased. Happy 
is the wages class when it has acquired that individual 
and mutual intelligence and that activity of industrial 
movement which put them beyond 'the necessity of such 
a brutal resort ! Yet I can not conceive how one can 
look at the condition of the manufacturing operatives as 
they were left at the rejDeal of the iniquitous Combina- 
tions acts in 1824, and question that the early strikes in 
England were essential to the breaking up of the power 
of custom and of fear over the minds of the working 
classes, habituated to submission under the terror of laws 
now universally recognized as oppressive, unaccustomed 
to concerted action, illiterate, jealous, suspicious, tax- 
ridden, and poverty-stricken. What but some great strug- 
gle could have taught them the self-confidence and readi- 
ness for self-assertion which should overcome that fearful 
inertia ? What else would have impressed the employing 



' Not necessarily, as we liave shown on a preceding page, by its im- 
mediate results. 

^ The loss to production by strikes is often grossly overestimated. 
Not a few strikes take place because of a threatened reduction of 
wajyes in consequence of previous over-production, and the strike re- 
sults in clearing tlie market more thoroughly than would be done 
otherwise. Then, again, the enforced inactivity of a strike for higher 
wages is often succeeded by an increased activity, Avhich does some- 
thing to make good the loss of time. 



893 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

classes with a clue respect for their laborers, or inspired 
that lively sense of the possible consequences of with- 
standing a just demand which is essential to competition 
in any true sense ? '' Masters are always and everywhere 
in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination 
not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate." ' 
It is well enough for the peace of industrial society and 
the mutual understanding of all parties, that masters 
should be made to know that two can play at that game. 
There is nothing to quicken the sense of justice and 
equity like the consciousness that unjust and inequitable 
demands or acts are likely to be promptly and fearlessly 
resisted or resented. 

LEGISLATION AGAINST STRIKES AND COMBINATIONS. 

We have seen that by the Statute of Laborers in Eng- 
land, workmen were not allowed to ask or receive wages 
above a fixed amount, not even, on pain of imprisonment, 
to accept " meat, drink, or other courtesy" (25tli Edward 
III.) in addition to the stipulated sum. It will readily 
be believed that combinations of workmen for increase of 
wages were not favored of the law. J^j statute of 2d and 
3d Henry VI., it was premised that " artificers, handi- 
craftsmen, and laborers have made confederacies and 
promises, and have sworn mutual oaths not only that they 
should not meddle one with another's work, and perform 
and finish that another hath begun, but also to constitute 
and appoint how much work they shall do in a day, and 
what hours and times they shall work ;" and therefore it 
was enacted that '"if any artificers, workmen, or laborers 
do conspire, covenant, or promise together, or make 
oaths that they shall not make or do their works bat at 
a certain price and rate, or shall not enterprise or take 
upon them to finish that another had begun, or shall do 

'Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, ii., 70. 



LAWS AGAINST GOMBmATIONS. 393 

but a certain work in a clay, or shall not work but at cer- 
tain hours and times," every person so offending should be 
visited in severe penalties, the punishment for the third 
offence being loss of ears and infamy. This statute was 
followed thick by others, so that the act of 1824 which 
exempts from criminal responsibility' meetings and com- 
binations for fixing wages and altering the hours of work, 
provided no violence, threats, intimidation, molestation, 
or obstruction be done or offered towards masters or 
other workmen, repeals, if I have rightly counted them, 
twenty-eight acts, representing the wisdom of Parliaments 
in the reigns of ten different kings or queens. 

While the law of England thus, by direct inhibition, 
sought to reduce to the minimum competition for labor, 
no statute, so far as I have observed, made even the de- 
cent pretence of restraining masters from combinations, 
until the beginning of the present century. " We have 
no acts of Parliament against combining to lower the 
price of work,'" said Adam Smith, " but many against 
combining to raise it." By statute of 40th George III. 
(c. 106), however, "all contracts, covenants, and agree- 
ments whatever, in writing or not in writing, made or to 
be made, by or between any masters or other persons, for 
reducing the wages of workmen, or adding to or altering 
the usual hours or time of working, or for increasing the 
quantity of work," were declared unlawful, under a 
penalty of £20. 

This act is also specially noticeable for two provisions : 
one, that no master should act as justice of the peace 

i"Yet they were not made lawful." — Sir William Erie, Trades- 
Unions, p. 26. 

A combination of workmen is thus, in England, still to be held to 
examination in the light of the general principles of the law by which 
unreasonable restraint of trade is prohibited. ' The practical applica- 
tion of these principles," Sir William remarks, " lies in indictment for 
violation of duty towards the public, or in action for violation of a 
private right." (Ibid.) 

* Wealth of Nations, i. 70. 



394 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

for executing any of its provisions (sec. xvi.), a conces- 
sion not yet made in respect to disputes between agri- 
cultural laborers and their employers ; the other, that 
" whereas it will be a great convenience and advantage to 
masters and workmen engaged in manufactures that a 
clieap and summary niode l)e established for settling all 
dis]iutes that may arise between them respecting wages 
and work," arbitrators should be appointed, under legal 
sanction, for determining the respective rights of the two 
parties in case of controversy. This last well-intentioned 
provision was, however, admitted by an act of four years 
later (44th George JII.,c. 87) to have failed of its purpose. 

But in 1 824 (5th George lY., c. 95) Parliament repealed 
all the statutes which prohibited combinations of work- 
men. In 1825 this measure was perfected (6th George lY., 
c. 129) under the lead of Iluskisson, who announced the 
broad principle that " every man is entitled to carry that 
talent which nature has given him, and those acquire- 
n)ents which his diligence has obtained, to any market in 
which ho is likely to obtain the highest remuneration." 

In France, combinations of workmen for the purpose of 
influencing wages were prohibited with great severity by 
the Penal Code of 1810, which also punished, though with 
less severity, combinations of employers for the purpose 
of unjustly depressing wages. By the law of 1849 the 
penalties decreed against combinations of masters and of 
workmen were equalized. By the law of May 25th, 
1864, combinations free from violence or show of vio- 
lence were sanctioned. " Le point de depart de ta loi," 
said M. Ollivier, who reported the bill, " est celui-ci : 
Liberte absolue des coalitions, repression rigoureuse de 
la violence et de la fraude."' The act of 1864 did not 
fail of its purpose through being neglected by the work- 
ing classes, who seemed to accept the permission to strike 
as a sort of legislative recommendation. 



^Chapter xii. of the report of M. Ducarre, already cited, contains 
the text of the laws of IblO, 1849, and 1864 relating to combinations. 



STRIKES IN EUROPE. 395 

" There is scarcely a trade in France," said Mr. Ward, 
writing in 1868, " of which, during the last three years, 
the members have not combined for the pnrpose of in- 
creasing the rate of wages and diminishing the honrs of 
labor, and their eiforts to this end have usually met with 
success." ' 

In Belgium, strikes are freely resorted to, especially in 
Brussels," yet perhaps nowhere is the workman's indus- 
trial responsibility for the abuse of this po^ver more direct 
and certain than in this kingdom, owing to its geographi- 
cal position and its peculiar commercial relations. 

From the Netherlands M. Locock reports : " Such a 
thing as a strike is here almost unknown. Once or twice, 
indeed, it has been attempted, but it met Avith little sym- 
pathy, and was speedily suppressed." ^ The leason for the 
non-appearance of the strike movement in this kingdom 
is found in the fact that the provisions of the Penal Code 
of 1810 prohibitory of combinations (arts. 415 and 416), 
which we have seen were repealed in France by the law of 
25th May, 1864, are still in force here. 

Throughout l^orth Germany liberty to combine was 
granted by articles 152 and 153 of the Industrial Code 
(Gewerbe-Ordnung ■*) of June 21st, 1869, and the same 
provisions have since been extended throughout the 
Empire : a vast change, whether we consider the extent of 
territory and of population affected, or the severity of the 
regime abolished by the Code of 1869."^ 

In Austria strikes are prohibited, and rarely occur. 
Ringleaders may, by the Code (art. 481), be punished 
with imprisonment, or expelled from the empire. 

■ Workmen and Wages, p. 255. 

2 Mr. J. G. Kennedy's report (Textile Factories, 1873, p. 24, 25). 

^ Eeport on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1870, p. 25. 

*TIie full text of this Code will be found (in translation) in the Re- 
port on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of Prussia, 1870, pp. 
101-141. 

^ I speak generally. As I understand the matter, combinations had 
been legalized in Prussia four or five years previously. 



/ 



396 THE WAGES QUESTION 

From Norway, H.B.M. Consul- General Crowe reports : 
" No instance is on record of any combination having 
occurred to coerce masters with the view to obtain liigher 
w^ages." ^ 

In Denmark, Mr. Strachey reports that strikes seldom 
occur. " In 1818 the printers struck and received an ad- 
vance in wages ; in 1865 the bricklayers and carpenters 
struck for ten days ; in 1867 the carpenters again struck, 
witli the result of an additional twopence per week for 
their trouble."^ 

In Italy, the Penal Code is stringently prohibitive of 
combinations and strikes, the penalty being three months' 
imprisonment to all participants, and six months' to ring- 
leaders.' Strikes, however, occur in spite of the law. 
Mr. Ward gives a short list* of them, some successful, 
some unsuccessful, some resulting in compromise. The 
more recent statements of Mr. Ilerries ' show no tendency 
to an increase in their number or severity. 

In Russia, though there is no general organization of 
the laboring classes, Mr. Egerton ' reports : " Strikes are 
by no means unusual." 

TRADES-UNIONS. 

The expediency of trades-unions is usually discussed as 
if connected Mdtli the expediency of strikes so directly and 
intimately that a decision upon one Avould be conclusive 
in respect to the other. Thus, many persons, having 
proved to their own satisfaction that strikes have had a 
great agency in advancing wages, have assumed that the 
existence of trades-unions is thereby justified. Others, 

'Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1871, p. 379. 
^ Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1870, p. 507. 
= H.B.M. Consul Colnaghi's Report, 1871, p. 284 (articles 385-7 of the 
Code). 

* Workmen and Wages, p. 283. 
» 1871, pp. 209-248. 

• 1873, Textile Factories, p. 112. - 



TBADE8 -UNIONS AND STRIKES. 397 

liaving demonstrated, as they think, tlie iiiischieyoiis tan- 
dency of trades-unions,' have carried their conchisions out 
against strikes as if there were a vital connection be- 
tween the two systems. ]N^o such relation in j)rineiple 
exists. Strikes are, as has been said, of the nature of in- 
surrection. Trades- unions are associations for facilitating 
insurrection, like secret political clubs, and the desirability 
of these may well be regarded as a different question. 
The virtue of an insurrection is that it comes because it 
must come — comes because evils have grown intolerable, 
and to destroy is better than to conserve. We may rec- 
ognize the office of violence in breaking up an utterly 
outworn order and clearing the ground for a reorganiza- 
tion of society and industry, yet fail to recognize an 
advantage in making systematic provision, in advance, for 
the easy resort to violence. Doubtless we might say, not 
only that, of all successful insurrections, those have been 
most beneficent in their results wliich have broken forth 
unprepared, out of the indignant sense of. wrongs suffered 
and of burdens borne past patience, but also that, as a 
rule, insurrections are more likely to be successful when 
in the main spontaneous. It is not meant that any popu 
lar rising was ever unpreceded by more or less of con- 
ference among the natural leaders of the injured classes. 
But I apprehend that those risings which have been most 
elaborately devised, and in which the machinery of insur- 
rection has been most extensively employed, are generally 
those which have most signally and often ignominiously 
failed. There is a double reason for tliis : on the one 
hand, there is a concert in the common sense of injury 
which gives a wonderful instantaneousness to the action of 
outraged masses ; on the other hand, there is often a singu- 
lar impotence in conspiracy. But this is by the way. The 

1 " Worse even than plague, pestilence, or famine, combinations 
among workmen are tlie greatest social evil wlucli, in a manufacturing 
or mining community, afflicts society.'" — Sir A. Alison (History of 
Europe, xx. 206.) 



398 THE WAGES QUESl'IOJV. 

comparison lias been introduced only to enforce tlie 
tliouglit tliat tlie proved expediency of strikes would not 
carry with it the expediency of the jjermanent organiza- 
tion of lal)or for the initiation and conduct of strikes. 
Being a destructive agency, these should never he resorted 
to except in a real and serious exigency which would, 
among any generous and manly class under a free govern- 
ment, furnish an organization for the occasion more 
vital and apt than any derived from a state of industrial 
peace. 

But this assumes that the body of tlie working classes are 
at least tolerably intelligent, understanding their own in- 
terests and the conditions of their industry, having among 
them men of natural leadership, capable of uniting for a 
common cause, and of remaining firm and true to each 
other in enforcing their demands. It assumes, moreover, 
that a considerable proportion, at least, of these classes 
have something in the way of accumulations from past in- 
dustry, and, as a consequence of this, have also a certain 
degree of credit with the trading class. But if, as is the 
melancholy fact in many countries of Europe, the body of 
laborers are found in a condition, no matter how induced, 
of dense ignorance, unaccustomed to the communication 
of thought, and to association for political or other pur- 
poses, with only here and there a laborer so fortunate or 
so wise as to liave saved any thing from the avails of past 
labor : then doubtless they must be long drilled to subor- 
dination and concert of action in associations permanently 
maintained, and the funds recpiisite for the initiation and 
conduct of strikes must be accumulated in advance by the 
painful exactions of " the society " out of scant weekly 
earnings. 

And it will be among the infelicities of such a situation, 
that these organizations will be dragged into strikes 
founded on demands which can not be maintained, which 
ignorance or passion on the part of (he members — it may be 
of a bare majority only — or meddlesomeness and arrogance 



OTHER OFFICES OF TRADES -UNIONS. 399 

on the part of officers and managers, liave caused to be 
put forward without due consideration of the state of the 
market or the equities of distribution : demands which, 
by reason of their offensiveness or their extravagance, mas- 
ters w^ould not, without terrible punishment, concede if they 
could, and perchance could not if thej would concede 
witliout ultimately checking production and diminishing 
employment. Such demands workmen would be much les5 
likely to make if they had to combine especially for the pur- 
pose. The reason of the case would have to be shown very 
clearly to overcome the doubts of the cautious or ths more 
experienced. There would be deliberation, the weighing 
of the cause, and the counting of the cost. But where a 
discipline approaching military perfection has already 
been established, where authority has been erected, and 
men have come, more or less voluntarily, but most ex- 
plicitly, under obligation to obey the decrees of that au- 
thority, action upon claims of doubtful legality or expedi- 
ency is likely to be prompt and peremptory. 

I have thus far spoken of trades-unions as if they were 
maintained only for the purpose of initiating and conduct- 
ing strikes, for increase of wages or reduction in the hours 
of labor. Trades-unions do, however, perform three other 
offices : first, as friendly societies ; secondly, as sequester- 
ing trades and limiting their membership ; thirdly, in 
legislating upon the methods of industry. 

Of trades-unions as friendly societies insuring their 
members against the contingencies of sickness, loss of 
tools, involuntary loss of employment, or providing the 
rites of burial and a pension to the widow or to dependent 
children,' it is not needful to speak here at any length. 

^ The objects of the "Amalgamated Society of Carpenters," com- 
prising 190 branches and 8361 members, were thus stated by Mr. 
Applegarth, the Secretary, before Sir W. Erie's Commission: "To 
raise funds for the mutual support of its members in case of sicliness, ac- 
cident, superannuation ; for the burial of members and their wives ; 
emigration, loss of tools by fire, waste, or theft, and for assistance to 



400 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

A controversial advantage niiglit be taken, bj one inimi- 
eally disposed, of the fact, brought so startlinglj to light by 
recent actuarial inquiry, that nearly all the friendly soci- 
eties of Great Britain have been conducting their business 
on an unsound basis, and that, in consequence, they have 
involved themselves in obligations which their realized and 
anticipated funds will be inadequate to meet ;' but it 
ought, in fairness, to be remembered, in extenuation, that 
the British Government was in 1819 discovered, by Mr. 

members out of work ; also, for grantinof assistance in cases of extreme 
distress not otlierwise provided for by tlie rules." The proposed mem- 
ber " must be in good health, have worked five years at the trade, be 
a good workman, of steady habits, of good moral character, and not 
more than forty-three years of a<re." The admission-fee \&%s. Q>d. ; the 
weekly payment Is. The several benefits are as follows: "Donation 
benefit for 12 weeks, 10s. per week ; for another 12 weeks, 6s. per 
week ; for leaving engagement satisfactory to branch and executive 
council, 15s. ; tool benefit, to any amount of loss (or when a man has 
been a member for only six months, £5) ; sick benefit for 23 weeks, 
12s. per week, and then 6s. per week so long as his illness continues ; 
funeral benefit, £12 (or £3 10s. when a six-months' member dies) ; acci- 
dent benefit, £100; superaimuatlon benefit for life : if a member 25 
years, 8s. per week ; if a member 18 years, 7s. ; if a member 12 years, 
5s. The emigration benefit is £6, and there are benevolent grants, ac- 
cording to circumstances, in cases of distress." 

The following is the exhibit of the liabilities and assets of the "Man- 
chester Unity," an association numbering 426,663 members, and hav- 
ing 3488 places of business : 

LIABILITIES. 

Present value of Sick Benefits £8,548 592 

" " Funeral Benefits to members 1,775 162 

'♦ to wives 444 086 



£10,707 840 

ASSETS. 

Present value of contributions £6,473 531 

" of additional resources 392 127 

Capital 2,558 735 

£9,424 893 
Deficiency ; £1,843 447 



FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. 401 

Finlaison, to have been for twelve years doing qnite as 
foolish a thing in the sale of its annuities." The friendly 
societies have, so far as appears, shown every disposition 
to correct an error which it has taken the actuaries of Eng- 
land some time to discover. 

Of the advantages of making the trade the unit of life 
and health insurance, much could be said. Only two 
points need be mentioned : first, it affords the very per- 
fection of advertisement and agency. This is the weak 
point of life insurance as it exists outside of natural associ- 
ations, like trades and professions. The report of the In- 
surance Commissioners of Massachusetts for 1870 shows 
that, of the companies doing business in that State, seven- 
teen per cent of the gross receipts Avent to expenses ; and 
of this, ten and a half per cent went in commissions to 
agents. But this is not all. Even agencies sustained at 
such an expense fail to give the system of life insurance any 
thing like the extension which its economical advantages 
deserve, while among the working classes who especially 
need insurance, since calamities with them cut so deep 
into the quick and work such lasting injury, the ordi- 
nary sort of life insurance performs scarcely an appreciable 
office. But a friendly society, confined to a particular 
trade, having a natural constituency more or less bound 
together by personal acquaintance and common interests, 
and actually managed by its contributors, furnishes, as has 
been said, the very perfection of advertisement and 
agency. Secondly, to make the trade the unit of life and 
health insurance, affords the most equitable rule of contri- 
bution. Wide differences exist as to the healthfulness and 
longevity of occupations, as has been shown by some in- 
stances previously cited." In the friendly society men 

* The loss to tlie government was estimated hj Mr. Finlaison at 
£95,000 a year. 

^ Pp. 36-38. Speculators in Britisli annnities nnder tlie bill of 1808 
liad a, penchcmt for Scotcli gardeners, these appearing to constitute the 
longest -lived class recognized in the statistical tables. 



402 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

wlio belong to long-lived and healthy trades, and whoso 
money wages are perhaps considerably reduced in conse- 
quence thereof, are not obliged to pay for the sickness and 
the premature mortality of members of other trades, who 
are perhaps paid much higher rate.?, in compensation for 
the dangers and hardships of their work. 

But of trades-unions as friendly societies it is enough 
here to say that these humane and useful provisions can be 
better accomplished by associations which do not assume 
or attempt to legislate on the methods of industry, or to 
dictate terms to employers, than by societies which are lia- 
able at any time to be dragged into protracted and ex- 
hausting contests, and compelled to expend in industrial 
warfare the funds long and painfully gathered against the 
providential necessities of labor. The trade-clubs of Den- 
mark and the l^etherlands and the " artels" of Russia are 
examples of friendly societies which avoid this dangerous 
confusion of functions. The distinction between trade-so- 
cieties and benefit-societies is also very strongly marked in 
Prussia. In 1860 the relief -societies amounted to 3044, 
with an aggregate membership of 427,190 and an annual 
income of nearly one million dollars.* 

In France these societies are, under the decree of 1852, 
classified as " approved " or " authorized." The total 
number in 1867 was 5829, of which 4127 were approved 
.and 1702 authorized. Those which are approved conform 
to the requirements of the statutes, and enjoy certain privi- 
leges in consequence. The funds of the societies at the 
close of 1867 amounted to forty-six millions of francs, the- 
annual receipts rising to fourteen millions. Members had 
received sick-allowances during that year to the extent of 
3,998,216 days. The total membership of both classes of 
societies reached 750,590, of whom 120,387 were women.^ 

lu Denmark, Mr. Strachey reports not more than one 

^ Ward's Workmen and Wages, p. 209. 

* Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1870, pp. 479-482. 



FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. 403 

workman in fifteen, or at the outside one in ten, as sub- 
scribing to sick-clubs.' In Italy, Mr. Ilerries reports about 
600 friendly societies, witli a inembersliip not ascertained.^ 
In Russia the only species of friendly societies existing is 
the " artel," a small club rarely of more than thirty or 
forty members, more often of but ten to twenty.^ 

It is in Great Britain that we find friendly societies 
most widely spread and taking deepest root among the 
working classes. The Commissioners in their Fourth Re- 
port (1874) estimate that in England and Wales there are 
32,000 such societies, with an aggregate of four million 
members and an accumulation of funds in hand in excess 
of fifty-five millions of dollars. They add an estimate that 
these societies save to the poor-rates ten million dollars a 
year.^ 

But, secondly, besides the offices already indicated, 
trades-unions effect the object, whether desirable or not, 
of sequestering^ their respective trades, reducing the ac- 
cessions by apprenticeship) to the minimum, and practical- 
ly prohibiting all accessions to their number, after the 
first general muster, except through the door of appren- 
ticeship, thereby strictly limiting the number of workmen 
in each occupation and keeping the price of their ser\'ices 
artificially high. 

By what means the constant warfare upon non-society 
men is carried on ; by what arguments and appliances 
able workmen are convinced that it would be for their 
interest to enter these close labor-corporations; to what 
shifts the excluded are put for employment in the pres- 
ence of powerful societies, proscribing them and all who 

' Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1870, p. 509. 

« Report for 1871, p. 290 

= Mr. Egerton's Report of 1873. 

* Report, pp. xvi, xvii. 

" This appears to be the sole office of the associations of artisans 
("esnaf") in European Turkey. Mutual succor is an object which 
scarcely appears in their organizations. 



404 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

shall employ tliein, or on what terms of humiliation they 
are at times tolerated, it is not mj join-pose to speak in de- 
tail here. To the objection that, by the organization of 
such close industrial corporations, the great body of labor- 
ers are, in a degree, shut out from the benefits of employ- 
ment, while the enhanced prices of labor, thus protected 
from competition, are in a great measure paid by the un- 
protected wage-laborers, whose condition is rendered only 
the more miserable, the advocates of trades-unions make 
in substance these answers: 

First, that without such restrictions the increase of nn- 
instructed and unprovided labor would cause every trade 
to be overrun in turn, the wages in each being slowly but 
surely brought down, and the whole body of workmen de- 
graded to the lowest level of mere animal subsistence ; that 
nearly all the trades in England were in that condition 
when the unions undertook the work of restriction ; that 
for those trades which are now happily rescued from such 
a condition and lifted to a position of industrial independ- 
ence, to remove their barriers out of sympathy with the 
general mass of labor and admit all freely into competi- 
tion, would afford but the briefest relief, inasmuch as the 
improvidence of the ignorant, weak, and vicious would 
soon fill the space thus opened with just as hungry and 
wretched a crowd as now surges outside the barriers, and 
the sole eflect would thus be to ruin the privileged trades 
without hel]>ing their less fortunate brethren, as a drown- 
ing man catches and drags down one wlio might SM'im and 
save himself. 

Secondly, that instead of the associated trades throwing 
themselves thus away in a delusive Quixotism, they do in 
effect accomplish a much better result for the less skilled 
laborers by maintaining a high standard of work and 
wages, and by acting, in their strong estate, as a bulwark 
against the invasions of " capital," affording example and 
opportunity to all inferior bodies of labor to associate and 
govern themselves by similar methods. 



TRADE -UNION EXCLUSIVENESS. 405 

Thirdly (what has been intimated above), that tliero is 
really no limit to the principle of association among 
wage-laborers, and no reason, in the nature of the case, 
why every branch of industry, even to the day-laboring 
class, should not be protected by similar organizations and 
regulations. The recent extension of agricultural unions 
among the scattered farm-laborers of England is pointed 
to with not a little force as proving the adaptation of 
the system of industrial federation to conditions the least 
favorable. When, then, it is said all industries are thus 
organized and established, none will be at advantage or 
disadvantage relatively to another, but all will be at an 
advantage with respect to the employing class. Mean- 
while the result of universal federation would not be 
hastened but retarded by our relaxing our restrictions 
and abandoning the good principle. It is wholesome 
rigor which we exercise ; our measures seem seliish, and 
indeed they are taken with consideration only of our own 
interests, but the results are sure to favor the whole 
cause of labor. 

In each and all these claims there is enough of truth 
to entitle them to somewhat more respectful treatment 
than has been accorded them. The student of history 
recognizes that the ancient guilds of which the trades- 
unions are the indirect successors performed a high office 
in their time.* Selfish as were the aims and prescriptive 
as were the methods of the guild, it had yet its part to 
play in the strife of the people against king and priest 
and noble ; and it played that part, on the whole, well. 
Selfish and prescriptive as the modern trade-union has 

' " Althougli it is undoubtedly true that in a normal condition of 
society the system of protection and monopoly, of which the corpora- 
tions were the very ideal, is extremely unfavorable to production, in 
the anarchy of the Middle Ages it was of very grea^ use in giving the 
trading classes a union which protected them from plunder and en- 
abled them to incline legislation in their favor." — Lecky's History of 
Rationalism, ii. 240. 



406 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

been, it lias curbed the autlioi-ity of the employing- chiss 
which sought to domineer not in their own proper 
strength, but through a cruel advantage given them by 
class legislation, by sanitary maladministration, and by 
laws debarring the ])eople in effect from access to the 
soil. My difference with such defenders of trades-nnions 
as Mr. Thornton is merely as to the time when these 
should be put away as an outgrown thing. I find no 
ground for expecting any benefit to the wages class as a 
whole, from restricting the access to professions and trades 
in any country M'liere education is general, where trade is 
free, where there is a popular tenure of the soil, and 
where full civil rights, with some measure of political 
franchises, are accorded to workingmen. 



But it is as associations for legislating respecting the 
methods and courses of industry, that trades-unions acquire 
their highest importance. 

Strong as the passion of meddling is in all political 
connnunities, it appears nowhere so strong as in organiza- 
tions of M'orkingmen ; mischievous as have been the re- 
strictions upon trade and industry, imposed in the past 
by governments, it would be difficult to match some of the 
latest trades-union edicts out of the statutes of Edward III. 
and Richard II. 

The Reports of the British Commissioners (Sir William 
Erie, chairman) of 1867 show that there were in force 
among trades-unions rules like the following, to be enforced, 
wherever the unions should find themselves strong 
oiiongh, by fines levied on the masters, or by strikes : 

Prohibiting a man from employing his own brother or 
son, or even from laboring with his own hands at his own 
work, unless duly admitted to membership of the proper 
trade society. 

Prohibiting a workman to work out of his trade, so that 
a mason may not, for the shortest time, do the least part of 



TBABE -UNION BULE8, 407 

the woi'k of a bricklayer, or a bricklayer undertake the 
smallest casual patch of plastering or of stone -laying, or 
a carpenter finish a remnant of bricklayer's or mason's 
work, and if called in to fit a door or set a post, he may 
not, if he find the space accidentally left too small, remove 
so much as one loose brick, but must wait for the appro- 
priate artisan to be summoned. 

Prohibiting a workman, where an assistant is usually re- 
quired, to be his own assistant, for never so small a job or 
short a time, so that a plasterer, called to a piece of work 
where an assistant would not be actively employed for one 
eighth of the time, must still come attended by his " homo," 
who, if he can not be kept usefully busy, will, for the 
good of the craft, remain dignifiedly lazy during the 
whole operation. 

Prohibiting any one to be known as an exceptionally 
good workman in his trade ; against walking fast to the 
place of work when in the employer's time ; against carry- 
ing more than a certain load, as eight brick at a time in 
Leeds, ten brick in London, or twelve brick in Liverpool. 

Prohibiting use to be made or advantage taken of na- 
tural agents, of improved machinery, or of special local 
facilities. Thus we have regulations against brick being 
wheeled in a barrow instead of being carried in a hod, for 
no other reason alleged than that brick can be wheeled 
more easily than carried ; against brick being made by ma- 
chinery or stone dressed by machinery, so that inventions 
of vast capability remain almost unused in England ; 
against stone being dressed, even by hand, at the quarry 
where it is soft and can be easily worked. 

Prohibiting with more than Chinese intolerance the 
use within small districts, arbitrarily circumscribed, of 
material produced outside, so that brick can not be carried 
into Manchester from brickyards distant only four miles 
without the certainty of a strike ; prohibiting an employer 
from taking a job outside the place of his own residence, un- 
less he shall take with him at least one half the workmen to 



408 THE WAGES QUESTIOJV. 

be employed ; proliibiting members to " work for any gen- 
tleman, at any job whatever, wlio finds his own materials 
or does not employ a regular master in the trade to find 
the same ;" and, finally, making war at every stage upon 
" piece-work.'' 

It is not to be understood that any one society has 
adopted all these rules, or that all societies have adopted 
any one of them ; but, to a very great extent, rules like 
tliose recited, and many others quite as minutely restric- 
tive, are enforced by the whole striking-power of the trade. 

All such regulations and restrictions must clearly be 
judged by the pnnciple wliicli has been applied to State 
legislation on similar subjects. If they can be shown, be- 
yond any reasonable doubt, to be correspondent to human 
infirmities in such a way that labor, on the whole and in 
the long run, has actually a freer resort to its best market 
by reason of them, then they stand justified on economical 
grounds. But if they are not thus required to correct lia- 
bilities which threaten the mobility of labor, they must be 
pronounced as mischievous as they are irritating and insult- 
ing. And this liability and strong proclivity of associa- 
tions of workingmen to intermeddle and dictate concern- 
ing the methods and courses of industry must be accepted 
as a valid, practical argument from human nature against 
trades-unions. 



CONCLUDING EEMAEKS. 

Theoitghout the foregoing discussions I have written un- 
der a constant sense of my accountability as a teacher of 
political economy. I have adduced no causes, recognized 
no objects, but such as 1 deemed to be strictly economical. 
No ethical or social considerations have moved me con- 
sciously in the composition of this work. Causes have, it 
is true, been here adduced which are not commonly recog- 
nized as economical, but it has only been where reasons 
could be shown sufficient, in my judgment, for attributing 
to these causes, which are perhaps primarily ethical or so- 
cial, a clear potency within the field of industry, affecting 
either the production or tlie distribution of wealth ; for I 
hold that it can not be cpiestioned that whatever affects 
either of these is, in just so far, an economical cause. 
Thus, sympathy for labor (pp. 362-372), if it serves in any 
degree to make competition on the side of the laboring 
class more active and persistent ; if it takes any thing from 
the activity and persistency with wdiich the employing 
class use the means in their power to beat down wages, or 
lengthen the hours of work, or introduce J^oung children 
into painful and protracted labor, becomes, in just so far 
as it has such an effect, a strictly economical cause, to be 
recognized, and, so far as may be, its force measured, by 
the writer on the distribution of wealth. The economist 
recognizes indolence (pp. 174, 175), the indisposition to 
labor, as an economical cause, holding men back from the 
acquisition of wealth which they might obtain but for the 
force of this principle. Why is not public opinion, re- 
straining men, as it so largely does, from the acquisition 
of wealth by means held to be dishonorable or oppressive 
to the weaker classes of the community, also and equally 
to be recognized as an economical cause ? 



410 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

I regret that this treatise should be so strongly contro- 
versial in form ; but tlie fact is, certain doctrines Avhicli I 
deem to be wholly unfounded have become so widely 
spread that one can make no progress, by so much as a 
step, towards a philosophy of wages Avithout encounter- 
ing them. These doctrines are : 

1st (pp. 136-140). That there is a wage-fund irrespec- 
tive of the numbers and industrial quality of the laboring 
population, constituting the sole source from which wages 
can at any time be drawn. 

2d (pp. 161-105). That competition is so far perfect that 
the laborer, as producer, always realizes the highest wages 
which the employer can afford to pay, or else, as consum- 
er, is recompensed in the lower price of commodities for 
any injury he may chance to suifer as producer. 

3d (pp. 243-21:6). That, in the organization of modern 
industrial society, the laborer and the capitalist are toge- 
ther sufficient unto production, the actual employer of 
labor being regarded as the capitalist, or else as the mere 
stipendiary agent and creature of tlie caj^italist, receiving 
a remuneration Avhich can properly be treated like the 
wages of ordinary labor. 

These doctrines I have found it necessary' to contro- 
vei-t ; and in so doing have not cared to mince matters or 
pick phrases. For any excess of controversial zeal I shall 
easily be justified, if I have substantiated the positions I 
have taken ; on the other hand, if I have been unduly 
presumptuous in assailing doctrines sanctioned by such 
high authority, a little too much harshness in argument 
will not add appreciably to my offence. 

It may, perhaps, be Avell to guaixl against misconstruc- 
tion on a single point. In getting rid of the wage-fund, 
we have not reached the result that wages can be in- 
creased at any time or to any amount Avhatever. AVe 
have merely cast aside a false measure of wages. Wages 
still have their measure and their limits, and no increase 
can take place without a strictly economical cause. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 411 

Wages can not be larger than tlie product except by force 
of pre-existing contract. Wages ninst, in the long run, 
be less than the product by enough to give the capitalist 
his due returns, and the employer his living-profits. 

What then has been effected by doing avt^ay with the 
wage-fund? We have shown (Chapter YIII.) that the 
remuneration of hired labor finds its measure not in a 
past whose accumulations have been plundered by class 
legislation and wasted by dyuastic Avars, but in the pre- 
sent and the future, always larger, freer, and more fortu- 
nate. If capital furnishes the measure of wages, then 
that measure is derived from the past, such as it has been, 
and no iucrease of energy, intelligence, and enterjjrise 
on the part of the laboring class can add to, as no failure 
on their part can take from, their present remuneration, 
which is determined wholly by the ratio existing between 
capital and population. If production furnishes the 
measure ofw^ages, as is here maintained, then the w^ages 
class are entitled to the immediate benefit of eveiy im- 
provement in science and art, every discovery of re- 
sources in nature, every advance in their own industrial 
character (Chapter IX.). Surely it is not a small matter 
that the laborer should find the measure of his wages in 
the present and the future, rather than in the past ! 



But that portion of this treatise on which I should be 
disposed most strongly to insist, as of extended conse- 
quence in the philosophy of wages, is the doctrine that 
-if the wage laborer does not pnrszie Ms interest, he loses 
his interest (Chapter X.) in opposition to the view so 
generally maintained by economists, that if the wage 
laborer does not seek his interest, his interest will seek 
him ; that economical forces are continually operating to 
relieve and repair the injuries of labor ; and, specifically, 
that all sums taken in excessive profits, or for the exces- 
sive remuneration of capital, whether through combina- 



413 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

tioiis of einployci's or capitalists or tliroug'h the disabili- 
ties of the Avorking class, are sure to be restored to wages. 
To the contrary, I have sought to show that, in a state 
of imperfect competition : 

First, wages may be reduced Avithout any enhancement 
of profits, the difference being, not gain to the employer, 
but loss to mankind through the industrial degradation of 
the laborer (Chapter IV.) Secondly, for so much of the 
sums taken from the laboring class by reduction of wages 
as the employers or capitalists may at the time secure in 
excessive profits or excessive interest, there exists no 
adequate security, under the operation of strictly economi- 
cal forces, that it will be fully returned to the Avages 
class in a quickened dcnuind for their labor, inasnnich as 
hixuriousness and indolence (pp. 2.">7— 10, 251) will in- 
evitably enter, among the majority of employers, to waste 
in self-indulgence a portion of the profits so acquired, or 
to take something from the activity and the carefulness 
with which future production will be pursued. Tiiirdly, 
in respect to such industrial injuries as have just been de- 
scribed, economical forces by themselves tend (pp. In5, 160) 
to perpetuate and continually to deepen the injury, put- 
ting the laborer at a constantly increasing disadvantage 
in the exchange of his services. 

If these three ])ropositions have been substantiated, it 
follows with absolute certainty that the doctrine of the 
schools, that in a state of imperfect competition the em- 
ployer and the capitalist are the guardians of the laborer's 
interests and the trustees of his wages, is most fallacious, 
those interests being, in truth, only secured when placed in 
his own keeping (pp. 211, 212), those wages being only his 
own when paid into his hands, and that, to enable him thus 
to maintain his rights in the distribution of the product of 
industry, he must be qualified by an education which is 
wholly extra-economical, for which the community, 
through either its social or its political agencies, must 
make provision. 



CONCLUDING BEMARKS. 413 

This biings us face to face with tlie doctrine of Laissez 
f'aire, which teaches that the spontaneous action of in- 
dividuals, each seeking his own interest on his own in- 
stance, guided and helped at most by the purely social 
forces of the community, will achieve the best possible 
industrial results; and that the interference of govern- 
ment, operating by constraint and compulsion, under the 
sanction of law, caii only be mischievous. Reasons have 
been shown for believing that Laissez faire, so long and 
loudly proclaimed a principle of universal ai^plication, 
is nothing- but a rule of conduct (pp. 162-4) applicable in 
certain conditions ; a rule very useful, indeed, when duly 
subordinated to higher considerations, but mischievous 
when allowed to bar the way to clear, practical oppor- 
tunities for advancing the industrial condition of man- 
kind ; a rule, in short, which, like fire or water, is a good 
servant but a bad master. 

Yet, in reducing Laissez faire from the rank assigned 
it in most economical treatises, to its true grade of a prac- 
tical rule, good in certain conditions only, we have not 
reached the result that State interference is therefore desi- 
rable at any and every point where the spontaneous action 
of individuals shall be seen to be inadequate to achieve 
the highest good of all classes. We have merely put the 
objection to paternal government on grounds which will 
bear examination. State interference, however well in- 
tended, however clear the occasion, is certain in some 
degree to miss its mark, and to Avork more or less of posi- 
tive mischief in any attemj)t to remove the evils incident to 
individual action. Legislation is always more or less un- 
wise ; administration always falls in some degree short of 
its intent (pj). 112, 173). Certainly no one can entertain a 
stronger sense of the evils of the. regulation by law of the 
industrial concerns of the people than the writer of this 
treatise. State interference with industry is only justi- 
fied where the admitted mischiefs of restriction are heavily 
overborne by an urgent occasion for preventing the per- 



V 



414 THE WAGES QUESTION. 

manent degradation of the lal)oring classes through tlic 
operation of economical forces which the individual is 
powerless to resist. 

Admitting, then, that it is eminently desirable to reduce 
the action of the organized public force to the minimum 
consistent with the above object, shall m'c not say that 
govei'nment can not relieve itself from the necessity of 
frecpient and minute interferences with industry in any 
other way to so great an extent as by, 1st, insisting on the 
thorough primary education of the whole population ; 2d, 
providing a strict system of sanitary administration ; 3d, 
securing by special precautious the integrity of banks of 
savings for the encouragement of the instincts of frugality, 
sobriety, and industry ? 

Each of these things is contrary to tlie doctrine of Laissez 
faire ; yet I, for one, can not find room to doubt that, on 
purely economical grounds, the action of the State herein 
is not only justifiable but a matter of elementary duty. 
A little interference witli the freedom of individual action 
here will save the necessity of a great deal of interference 
elsewhei e. If the State will sec to it that the wliole body 
of the people can read and write and cipher ; that the 
common air and common water, which no individual vigi- 
lance can protect, yet on which depends, in a degree which 
few even of intelligent })ersons comprehend, the public 
health and the laboring-power of a population, are kept 
pure; and that the first feeble efi'orts of the poor at better- 
ing their condition and saving "for a rainy day" are 
guarded against olficiul frauds and speculative risks, it 
may take its hands off at a hundred other j^oints, and 
trust its citizens, in the main, to do and care for them- 
selves. These things therefore are demanded by the true 
economy of State action. 

But, even so, I find to my own satisfaction at least a 
present necessity for legislation and administration in the 
interest of health, in the case of all industries where large 
numbers of laborers of differiuc; sexes, ao-es, and de^i'ees 



CONCLUDmG REMARKS. 415 

are aggregated, especially where other than manual power 
is employed. Factory ai'ts prohibiting labor lor all 
classes beyond the term which physiological science ac- 
cepts as consistent with soundness and vigor; restricting 
within limits carefully adapted to the average capability of 
effort and endurance tlie employment of children and of 
women also, so long at least as women are denied suffrage 
on the ground either of mental inferiority or sexual un- 
iitness for contact with what is rough and vile ; and pro- 
viding a full and frequent sanitary inspection of air and 
watei", from garret to cellar, in all bnildings thus occupied: 
acts like these eeem, at least in the present, to be justified 
and demanded, not more by social and moral than by 
economical considerations (pp. 35T-9). For it must ever 
be borne in mind, in such discussions, ihat those things are 
economically justified which can reasonably be shown to 
contribute, on the whole and in the long i-un, to a larger 
production, or, ])roduction remaining the same, to a more 
equable disti-ibution of wealth. 



IISIDEX. 



Adams, John, the paper money of the 
American Revohition, 16. 

Agricultural wages paid largely in 
kind, ^0-4; agricultural laborers in 
England crippled early by rheuma- 
tism, 08 ; agricultural truck not for- 
bidden in England, o27. 

Agriculture, great irregularity of em- 
ployment in, 27, 28, 32, 'i'S ; law of 
"Dim. nishing Returns" in, chap. v. ; 
difficulty of ajjplying co-operation to, 
280, 381. 

Air, purity of the, affecting the effi- 
ciency of labor, 60-4. 

Alison, Sir Archibald, Hhtonj of 
Europe, 54, "^nn., 118/;., 1 :>])/,, 
180//., 268«., 317, 318, 3», 3y7y/,. ; 
(Report on the Payment of Wages 
Bill, 18.')4), testimony respecting 
truck, 331-333. 

Allotment system, the, 25. 

Ames, Dr., Sex in Tnd/istry, 373. 

Annuities, mistake of the British 
Government respecting sale of, 400, 
401. 

Applegarth, William, objects and 
methods of the Amalgamated Soci- 
ety of Carpenters, 399. 

Apprentices, statute of (England), 
306, 307. 

Apprenticeship made the condition of 
entrance to many trades by union 
regulations, 403-5. 

Arbitration, 394. 

Argyle, Duke of, famine in India, 
118//. ; necessity for restrictions 
upon labor, 357. 

Arithmetical increase of subsist3nce, 
102. 

Ash worth, Mr., comparative cist of 
clothing from cotton, wool, and flax, 
122)1. 

Austria, co-operation in, 288 ; restric- 
tions upon industry, 309, 310 ; 
marriage statistics, 356 ; factory 
legislation, 360 ; strikes, 395. 



Avarice, in masters and employers, 
opposes true self-interest, 59, 
164. 

Babbage, Charles, Economy of Man- 
nfaetiires, 98, 257, 379n., 280»., 
282«. 

Bagehot, Walter, varying efficiency of 
labor, 47 ; Lombard Street, 230. 

Baines, Mr., improvidence of' the 
ccttage population of Leeds, 
350m. 

Baker, R. Smith, false economy of 
the labor of married women in fac- 
tories, 382 '. 

Bastlat, Fred'k. , Harmonies of Folit- 
eal Kconoriv.i, 159;/. 

Batbie, M., Xonveau Conrs de V Econ- 
omie, 44m., 49/*., 54, 65. 

Baxter, R. Dudley. National Income, 
3il?i., 31, S3, ii8, tlfyn. ; Local Taxa- 
tion, 'i2'i. 

Bazley, Sir Thomas, accidents in 
mining in England, 36//. 

Beaulieu, M., Les Fopnlcdlons Ouv- 
rieres, 78. 

Belgium, statistics of height and 
weight, 50, 51 ; intemperance in, 
78//.; ratio of bread-winners to de- 
pendents, 136//.. ; proportion of for- 
eigners in the population, 1 84 ; co-op- 
eration in, 287; marriage statistics 
of, 356 ; no factory legislation in, 
361 ; laws against strikes and com- 
binations in, 395. 

Beverley,Mr., marriages early in India, 
356/1. 

Biggs, Wm., testimony respecting 
frame rents, 334. 

Birth-rate, within different occupa- 
t'ons, 191 ; effect of injudicious poor 
laws upon, 322, 323. 

''Black Death," the, industrial conse- 
quences of, 304. 

Blanqui, M., Cours d''Economie In- 
dus.rielle, 59/j. 37474. 



418 



mi>EX. 



Board, to agriciiUnral laborers, 30, 21. 

Ikulio, Louis, Citsufili A'UpttntiiOy iiol). 

Bonar, Mr., ri'lution of enij)loyers and 
laborers in Switzerland, :JCil)«. 

Boot and shoe niaimt'acturo, irregu- 
liiritv of employment in, '60 ; iiitro- 
diietiou ot" maelunerv into, IS'X 

Brabazt)ii, Lonl, payment of agricul- 
tural wages in France, 20ii. ; food 
of the laboring population, ;">()«., 78; 
town and country rents, li8«. ; 
wages of women and men in ajjrioul- 
tnre, Sl-i''., oSO?;, 

Brassey, Tliomas, Work ami Wa(fes, 
efficiency of labor among varjor.s 
nationalities, 45, 40, 72 ; diet of 
East Indians, ll.s//.; payment of 
wages to French laborers, 3")ti». ; 
women in railway eo'istructiou, 
!i74//. ; Achlnss at Ilalij'a.i\ :i77-."^78. 

Bread winners, ratio to dependents, 
VMn., iVil. 

Brewster, Messrs. , co-operative enter- 
prise, ;i83/(. 

Briggs, Messrs., co-operative enter- 
prise", ~8-. 

Briekinaking, irregularity of emploj-- 
nu'iit in, ;.'8 ; employment of women 
iiud childron in, -yl, 'iC'^. 

Brittany, low stature of peasantry of, 
50 ; language of, 175/i. 

Britton, J. W., co-operative enterprise, 
~8o«. 

Cairnes, J. E., Exxai/s in I'olitirul 
/Croiioniy, ett'ects ot the gold dis- 
coveries on prices, 14«. ; the doc- 
trineof lfiis\czj'tiir<\ U't'iii, 108, 17o; 
insufficiency of the employers' sense 
of sell -interest, 1(54 ; Tfic Slave I'oiv- 
ci\ inefficiency of slave labor, 12 ; 
The jAXjieal Metho'l of J'oiitiriil 
Eeoiioii4tj, (Ed. 1875) the law of dim- 
inishing returns in agriculture, KHii. 
1 00m ; ratio between po) lulation and 
sub.'^istenee, 1 U' ; the office of econo- 
mic detinition, 218; Some Leadinx] 
J'fimvples of Politind Eeonovuj, 
c'tr., l!)7«. , 184; theory of "non- 
competing groups," l'.'5-7; profits 
the reward of abstiucnco, 2HI ; 
jiro^'.ts at or near the minimum, 
~o'i ; excessive prolits restored to 
wages, 237, 238, 2.)3 ; co-operation, 
2(>4-2()5 ; are strikes saiccessf ul V 
2'.)S//.; excessive friction of retail 
trade, 314, 315. 

Caird. James, dwellings in Scotland, 
01 ; Pniirie Ftiriniiifi^ illw.; 

Canada, efficiency of labor in, 45. 

Cantillon, M., ratio of breadwinners 
to dependents, \2i'»i. 

Capital, often supplied by the persons 
who perform labor in production, 
8 ; does not furnish the measure of 

18* 



Avages, ; 130, 131 ; yet wages aro 
largely advanced out of c.pital; 
does c:ii)ital mcl.ido land ? 'ii-i-b ; 
are the rotarns of capit.il at tne 
minimuni or not? '•',><'■>, :.37 ; does it 
make any diiL-renoe to thj wages 
class whether the i-eturns of capital 
are at the nutiitnum or not 't ;.37-41. 

Capitalist class, the, chap. xiii. ; not 
eoinc.dent with employing class, 
2.'1>, 244. 2-15; de])endent ecpially 
with the laboring class, ou the eni- 
jdoying class, :.',)ii, 2H1. 

Caiey, H. C, Esmvj on Wtiges, 141, 
3S.«. 

Carpentering trade, irregularity of 
ein|)loyment in, 28, 32. 

Carpeutcr-'i, the Amalgamated Socie- 
ty of, oOD. 

Catholic countries, holidays in, 29 ; 
priesthood, influence in favor of 
early marriages, 350>t. 

Census, Un.ted States, 1S70, OC), 180, 
375; Ireland, 1851, HI ; Scotland, 
1871, 175//., liil, 377. 

Chadwick, Edwin, cost of rearing a 
child, 33/«. ; employers [irefer high- 
jjiiced labor, 41 «.; eiiei'ts of drill 
upon laborers; 72; difficulty of re- 
moving laborers, 18."), 257; effects 
of education upon the condition of 
the laboring class, 353. 

Chalmers, Tnomas, Polilieal Eeono- 
iiiy, 322 ■. 

Chaiiiberlain, E. M., Sovereigiif! of Tn- 
(liistri/, 2S8/«. 

"Channel Islands," the, tenure of 
land in, 2J8. 

Charles 11. (England), industrial legis- 
lation of his reign, 308. 

Chateaubriand, M. , wages a later form 
of slavery, 205. 

Ciierbuliez, A. E., Precis dc la Science 
Econoii(i(ji/e^ 131. 

Cheerfulness in labor, 72-77. , 

Chevalier, M., Lectures, 00, I05h. 1.56, 
170; Traiieh in tlw United Statex, 
18b,. 

Children, irregularity of their employ- 
ment in agriculture, 33 ; employed 
on woik unsuited to their strength, 
52, .53, 107, 108, 201-3; legislation 
respecting the employment of, 350- 
02. 

China, food habits of the i)eople, 118 ; 
immobility of the pojjulation, 176. 

China scourers, excessive mortality 
among, 37. 

Cider truck, 23, 337. 

Cleanliness of pi-rson, affecting efficien- 
cy of labor, 00, 61. 

Clerical profession, duration of life in, 
37. 

Cliflbrd, Frederick, The Agricultural 
Lock-out of IST-i, 47/t. , 117, 118w. 



INDEX. 



419 



Clipperton, Consul, Bpecch diffdrencos 
among population of France, I'iOh. 

Clofcbing, its importance to the effi- 
ciency ol; the laborer, 5S ; relative 
expeuditiD'e of diderent classes for, 

. 117'.; is cheap clothing desirable ? 
V.i,l\ comparative cost of clothing 
from cotton, wool, and flax, V.Cin. 

Coinage, changes in, affecting nominal 
wages, VA 

Cobden, R., English peasantry di- 
vorced from the soil, 2p8n. 

Colweli, Stephen, Ways and Means of 
I'ayiw.tU, 1 'Ml. 

Competition, when perfect, secures an 
absolutely right distribution of 
wealth, ioT ; imperfect or unequal 
competition may depress and de- 
grade the laljorlng class, 105, ICfJ, 
2:20, 2r21.s:i'.)-41, ;^(;8»,, 885, Zm ; Prof. 
Cainies' theory of " Non-competing 
Group.s," 11)5, 'Mi, 221, 222; compe- 
tition opi3osed by the force of cus- 
tom, :j]l. 

Communal property in Switzerland, 
351. 

Consumption of wealth defined, 4. 

Consumptive co-operation, 283-8. 

Co-operation, defined, 247 ; erroneous 
characterization of, by Prof. Cairnes, 
2(j.'i-5j its real oljject is to get rid of 
the employing class, 205-S ; antici- 
pated advantages of, 208-72 ; its lim- 
ited success, 272-75 ; its difficulties, 
275-80; applied to agriculture, 281; 
partial co-operation, 282-3; consump- 
tive co-operation subject to fewer 
difficulties, 283-4 ; anticipated ad- 
vantages of, 284-6 ; statistics of, 
287-8. 

Continuity of employment, the em- 
ployer's interest in, 300-3 

Continuity of production, the employ- 
er's interest in, ;iy8-'.). 

Corn Lius, repeal of, efiect on English 
agriculture, 258. 

Corsica, annual migration into, from 
France, 187?i!,. 

Cotter tenancy, 9, 212. 

Cotton manufacture, irregulaiity of 
employment in, 30. 

Cotton goods, co.st of, compared with 
woollens, Vila. 

Courcellc-SmeuU, M., OperaUo7is de 
JiaiKfiit', 252. 

Co well, Mr., effect of English poor laws 
on female chastity, 322. . 

Cow-land, concession of, 23 ; profits 
estimated, 24. 

Coxe,Wm., Trnveh, the bearing of the 
Swiss peasantry, 2(iO. 

Cranwortli, Lord, strikes always futile, 
388. 

Crowe, H. B. M. Consul - General, 
strikes in Norway, 3'JQ. 



Currency, fictitious, effects upon wage 
labor, 310-3. 

Custom, its office in protecting the 
weaker classes against unequal com- 
petition, 311. 

Darwin, Charles, The Orvjln of tiiin- 
cics, 101. 

Del>tB, small: shall they be protect- 
ed by law y y50«,. 

Definitions in political economy, 218. 

Degradation of labor, the, chaxj. I v. 

Denmark, proportion of foreigners in 
the population, 184; co-operation in, 
287, 288; restrictions ujjon industry 
removed, 300; savings-banks sta- 
tistics, 350>t. ; strikes, 390 ; trade 
clubs, 402. 

Dependents, ratio to breadwinners, 
120/t. 191. 

Devon, Lord, his commission on the 
condition of Ireland, 370. 

Diffusion theory of taxation, 100, 310-8. 

" Diminishing Returns" in agriculture, 
law of, chap. v. : does not apply to 
mechanical industry, 98 ; affecting 
wages, 150. 

Distribution of wealth defined, 4 ; il- 
lustrated, 5, ; in treatii;g the ques- 
tions of distribution we liavc to do 
with industrial classes, not func- 
tions, 7 ; the problem of di.stribution, 
chap. X. ; deemed by Chevalier less 
important and difficult than the 
problem of production, 150. 

Distributed exchanged for undistri- 
buted wealth, the eft'ect on wages, 
210-223. 

Division of lab'r always a source of 
mechanical advantage, '.,0, 05 ; up to a 
certain point tends to increase agri- 
cultural wages, 147-9. 

Ducarre, M., i^aloires et Rapports 
eriire Ouvrlers et Patroits (187.5), 
87, 187n., 274, 309«., 34 la., 304m. 

Dupin, M., his researches into French 
industrj', 47. 

"Dusty Trades," mortality of, '■.&. 

Dwellings, laborers', oft'-n unfit for 
habitation, 01-4; efi'ects of unsani- 
tary and inadequate habitation on 
the moral elements of indi stry, 80 ; 
proportional expenditure of difierent 
cla.sses on lodging, 117. 

Earnings, extra, in trades, 24, 25 ; 

harvest, in agricvdture, '.'J'lU. 
Eden, Sir F. M., Misloryf thn Poor, 

Education, influence on efficiency of 
labor, 1)5-7 ; relative expenditure 
of different classts, for, 117?4.; loss 
of wages involved in, l;i3. 

Edward III., industrial legislation of 
his reign, 304, 305, 307, 379. 



420 



INDEX. 



Edward W., law against truck, 326. 
Edward VI., pauper legislation, 307, 

Egjrton, H. B. M. Consul, inefficiency 
of Uissian labor, 44 ; irregularity of 
factory attend.mjo, 48 ; reubleness 
of the industrial desires of ths Rus- 
sian paasantry, 127/i. ; no factory 
leg'.slation in Russia, y(52 ; strikes in 
Riissia, oHO ; "artsls," 403. 

Elizabeth, Q ;e3n, industrial legislation 
of \\;x reign, oUti, 31/7, 330. 

Emigration of artisans from Great Bri- 
tain forbidden by law prior to lS:i4, 
307. 

Employers of labor sometimes working 
at their trades, or personally super- 
vising the laborers, 10 ; the sense of 
their silt-interest not always suffi- 
cient, 50, GO, 1(54 ; i^rofits their ob- 
jec't in produciion, 12. >, 130; em- 
ployers a distinct industrial class, 
2;7, 2,38; not nscessaril/ capitalist-^, 
21% 2.1V); under imperfect competi- 
tion employers are not the guardians 
of the laborers' intrristi, 230, 240, 
35S ; t'.ie employer the master of the 
sitaat-on, 2yj, 29L ; incapable em- 
ployers live at the e.vpcnse of the 
laboring class, 2.')4-(; ; employers 
stimulatad l)y increased competition 
on tiie side of the laboring class, 
25o-8 ; imid in some degree in honor 
and social dist.njtion, 259 ; said by 
Adam Smith to be always in combi- 
nation to lower wages, 393. 

Empljying class, thi, chip. xiv. ; to 
bo distinguished from the c.ipltilist 
class, 244, 245 ; a false employing 
class, 247-50 ; characteristics of the 
true employing cl :ss, 251, 252 ; this 
class in Swit'.erland, 25,), 200 ; it is 
the object of CG-opsration to get rid 
of the employing class, 2(52-8; has 
either tlie emjiloyed or employing 
class an economical advantage over 
the other 'i chap. xvi. 

Employe I, tlie, none others belong to 
til J wages class, 200, 207 ; the dis- 
tinction betwe3n the employe I and 
the non-employed the greatest struc- 
tural fact ot industrial society, 221. 

Employment, the question of, is the 
true wagt s question, 2(i9, 270, 290, 
201 ; regularity of, affecting real 
wages, 2()-33 ; continuity of, tne em- 
I)loyors' interest in, 3JU-2. 

England, payment of agricultural 
wages, 2) ; duration of laboring 
power, 34, 35; efficiency of labor 
compared with that of India, 42 ; of 
various European countries, 43-*i ; 
norta an 1 south o; England, relative 
cffiuienc/ of labor of, 47; statistics 
of heigiit and weight, 50, 51 ; food 



of laborers, 54 ; degradation of the 
laboring population, how effected, 
82-4 ; food liabits of the people, 
118, 120, 124//.; ratio of breadwin- 
ners to depemleuts, 12(5«. ; rise of 
the wages-fund do;jtrine, 140 ; tlie 
peasantry divorced from the soil, 
208, 211/t.; e.fect on agriculture of 
the repeal of the corn laws, ^58 ; 
co-operation in l^ingland, 272, 273, 
282, 28y, 287 ; laws iu restraint of la- 
bor, 304-0; poor laws, 310-24 ; mar- 
riage statistics, 35), 381?*.; factory 
laws, 359, .oOJ ; rents intiuenced by 
public opinion, 3o7 ; lagislatiou 
against str.hes and combinations, 
302, 30 ) ; fr.e idly societies, 403. 

Eugel, Dr., relative expenditure of 
families on food, clothing, etc., 116, 
117. 

Entrepre:ieur, t'.ie, (see Employing 
Class). 

Erie, Sir Win., the Tiw of strikes, 
393 ; report of liis commission on 
Trade Unions, 390, 4i)G. 

Excuange of Wealtti dehned, 4; illus- 
ti'ated, 5, 0. 

Exoi.ange of distributed for undis- 
tributed wealta, its effect on wages, 
(J, 2L9, 22.>. 

Factory legislation in England op- 
posed by political economists, 1(52 ; 
its economical justihcatiou, 167, 17o; 
its history in Eiropo, 350-61 

Fa.thf nil, M. ss, public opinion un- 
friendly to female labor, 384. 

Famine, restricting poioulation. 111, 
112; periodical iu Ind.a, ll8/i. ; Irish 
famine of 1846-7, 121. 

Farmer, the Aiuericun, 5, 9, 227. 

Fashion, changes m, \vorking import- 
ant effects o.i industry, l(-5-17y. 

Fawoett, Henry, J'ntUiral Econoniij 
(jjciliilau, 1803), the Allotment sys- 
tem, 25/;.; food of the laborers of 
the West of England, r;6 ; wages are 
to be increased at the expense of 
Ijrohts, 57?t., 233, 234; equivalency 
of subsistence and wages, l.,3//. ; 
ili/l'erences m local wages in England, 
1 .s <" ; transfer of labor from agii jul- 
ture to manufactures, 204; co-opara- 
tionina.griculture, 281; strikes some- 
times snccessiul, 380. The JCcoiioiii.- 
ic Position of the JJrUish Laborer, 
laboring class insufficiently clothed, 
58 ; statement of the wage-fund 
doctrine, 139; Spcfchis, truclc, 336; 
opposition to the e.xtension of female 
labor, 377. 378//.; Da'dij Neuos, con- 
dition of agricultural laborers near 
Salisbury, 3-16. 

Ff rencu. Air. , higgling in Spanish retail 
trade, 315/t. 



WDEX. 



4.21 



Fellows, J., testimony respecting 
truck, 331«. 

Finlaision, A. G-., statistics of loss of 
time by sickness, 2i>/;.; discovers 
error of British Government in sale 
of annuities, 400, 401. 

Finnie, Mr., comparison of American 
Negro and East Indian laborer, 4'3«. 

Fix, Theodore, L(s Classes Ouvrieres. 
Mining accidents rare in France, 
S7n.; ill-success of strikes, 388. 

Food, in its relation to laboring force, 
53-8 ; relative expenditure of dif- 
ferent classes for, 117«. ; habits in 
respect to, of various nations, 118-24; 
is cheap food desirable? l:il-4. 

France, payment of agricultural wages 
in, 2J ; of mechanical wages, 31 ; du- 
ration of the laboring power of the 
population, 34, 35 ; etiiciency of la- 
bor compared with other countries, 
43, 44, 46; North and South of, 
varying efficiency of labor, 47 ; sta- 
tistics of height and weight, 51 ; food 
of the laboring jjopulation, 54 ; town 
and country rents, 118w.; speech-dif- 
ferences among popul.ition, 175«. ; 
proportion of foreigners, 184; peas- 
ant proprietorship general, 209 ; 
frugality of the peasantry, 235 ; co- 
operation in France, 274, 282, 287 ; 
comparative freedom of industry, 
309 ; ta.xntion under the old re'gime, 
817 ; marriage statistics, 356 ; factory 
legislation, 361), 361 ; laws against 
strikes and combinations, 394, 395 ; 
friendly societies, 402. • 

Francis, Sir P. , good work not appre- 
ciated in Turkey, 60n. 

Fraser, Mr. , economy of woman's 
labor, 381. 

Free- Traders, distinguished from the 
"Manchester" school, 161, 102. 

Frugality, amongst Irish in America, 
124 ; proportionately greater among 
laborers than among employers, 235; 
not encouraged by large and sudden 
rise of wages, 236 ; encouraged by 
co-operation, 271, 272 ; giving the 
wages class an advantage in compe- 
tition for the product of industry 
345-8 

Gairdner, Prof, unsanitary condition 
of Glasgow, 61. 

Gallatin, Albert, the industrial free- 
dom of the United States, ISlw. 

Gangs, agTicultural, in England, 201. 

Gardeners, longevity of, 37, 401 n. 

Gamier, Jos., Traite d' Economie Poli- 
tique, 34«,. 

Geometrical increase of population, 
1(2. 

George III. , industrial legislat'on of 
his reign, 306, 320, 33.), 393, 394. 



George IV., industrial legislation of 
his reign, 394. 

Germany, payment of agricultural 
wages in, ~!0 : industrial code re- 
quires payment of mechanics' wages 
in money, 21 ; food habits of people, 
118 ; peasant proprietorship general, 
209 ; co-operation in Germany, 274, 
287 ; restrictions on industry, 309 ; 
factory legislation, 360 ; strikes, 
395. 

Germans easily adapting themselves 
to the ways of other people, 187 «. 

Gibbon, 29w., ;i57. 

Gilbert's act (English Poor Law), 320, 
321. 

Gleaning of fields, in part payment of 
wages, 22. 

Girdlestone, Canon, the agricultural 
laborers of England, 38 ; food of 
Devon peasant, 56 ; unsanitaiy con- 
dition of dwellings m Devonshire, 61. 

Goltz, Th. Frh, von der. Die Lage 
derLdudlicheuArbeiter iin Deutschen 
lieick, 20 

Gould, H. B. M. Consul ; efficiency of 
Swiss factory labor, 44??. ; loss of 
wages by school attendance, 123; 
industrial desires of the Swiss 
peasantry, 127?i. ; character of Swiss 
employers, 259, 260 ; co-operation in 
Switzerland, 274, 282. 

Grattan, Consul, intemperance in 
Belgium, 78?i. 

Great Britain, consumption of liquors, 
349 ; savings bank statistics, 350 ; 
frisndty societies, 403. 

Greece, holidays in, 29 ; efficiency of 
laborers, 44rt. 

Greek Church, holidays in, 29. 

Greenhow, Dr., the effects on health 
of dry-grinding the metals, 36 : the 
heat in copper mines, 38«. 

Greg, W. R., Social A'jiiginas, 103. 

Guilds, predecessors of the modern 
Trades Unions, 228 ; remains of, in 
Europe, 309 ; their benelicial influ- 
ence, 405. 

Hallam, Henry, Constitutional History 

of E )iglnn.d, 369;j. 
Haines, W. P., married women in 

factories, 3S3«. 
Harmonies, the Economic, 160, 197, 

220, 221, 240, 316. 
Harrison, Frederick, 183, 272, 377m., 

279«., 291?i. 
Hastings, Geo. W., facility of the 

poor in becoming yjaupers, 324. 
Head, Mr. , statistics of retail trading, 

285. 
Hearn, Prof. Platology, 27, 67, 76, 

195, 196, 246. 
Heath, Mr., English reasaniry^ 21w., 

23, 34. 



422 



INDEX. 



Henry VI., industrial legislation of 

liis reign, ;)9i. 
Henry VIII., industrial legislation of 

I'lis reign, 3'30 
Herries, Mr., payment of wages in 

It«ly, 21 ; co-operation, 2S'3 ; factory 

legislation, 362 ; strikes, iJ'.-G ; 

friendly societies, 4(3. 
Hindoos, los3 of time by holidays, 29 ; 

inefficiency of labor, \'l. 
Hirt, Dr., Krankheiteri, der Arbcitct\ 

3i). 
Holidays, loss of time by, 39 ; pre- 
scribed by factory legislation, oGO, 

361. 
Holmes, H. B. M. Consul, good work 

not ajip'reciated in Hosnla, (50w. 
Holyoake, George J., extent of waste 

in production, 48m ; co-operation, 

286. 
Hopefulness in labor, 72-7. 
Hopper, R. \V., strikes never success- 
ful, ;!88. 
Horner, L., Einploytncnt of Children 

ill J'\irU>ricK, 167, 360. 
"Hours of labor, 1()7, 168, 35<)-62 
Hungary, the nobles of, freeing their 

serfs, 74, 75 ; taxation under the old 

Ti'ginie, 318. 
Hunter, Dr., Famine Aspects of India, 

111, 112. 
Huskisson, Mr., free trade in labor, 

394. 

Immigrants into the United States, 
accidents of their location, 18l-o ; 
into France, Macedonia, andCorsica, 
187^.. 

Improvements, unexhausted, in agri- 
culture, 281 /i. 

India, efficiency of labor in, 42, 46 ; 
ineflective machinery employed, 67 ; 
faniinus, 112; food habits of the 
peojilc, 118; immobility of the pop- 
xdation, 117. 

Industry, manufacturing, incessant 
movement of, 17S. 

Inglis, H.,24, 61, 76. 

Insurance, Life, is expensive and fails 
to reach the working classes, 

I 401. 

Intelligence, a factor of the laborer's 
efficiency in in'odnction, (').')-7 ; in- 
fluences the distribution of the pro- 
duct, 353-4. 

Intemperance lowers the efficiency of 
labor, 78, 87; the great foe to fru- 
gality, 349, 350. 

Interest, the term used in this treatise 
only of sums paid for capital actual- 
ly loaned, 225, 326 ; is interest at 
the minimum V 234. 

Inventions constitute an economical 
reason for increase of wages, 
14(i, 147. 



Ireland, the pig formerly paying the 
rent, 24; duration^ of the laboring 
power in, 34, 35 ; inefficiency of labor 
before tlie famine, 43, 45, 46 ; sta- 
tistics of height and weight, 51) ; food 
of the laboring population, 55; un- 
sanitary conditi(.>n of dwellings, 61 ; 
proverbial indolence of the popula- 
tion accounted for, 76 ; the famine 
of 184(i-7, HI; food habits of the 
jjcopte, 118 ; tenure of the soil, 213 ; 
relations between landlord and ten- 
ant influencing rents, 3()8-7. 

Irish, in America, their frugality, 124 ; 
their accidental location, 182; in 
England, jealousy of, 17(i/i; their 
early marriages at home and abroad, 
355. 

Italy, payment of wages in sulphur- 
mining, 21 ; peasant proprietorship 
increasing, 2li9 ; public sentiment 
protects the cultivatin-, 211 «.; 
co-opeiation, 282; factory legislation, 
362 ; rents influenced by public 
opinion, 3()8 ; strikes, 396; friendly 
societies, 403. 

Jarvis, Edward, cost of rearing chil- 
dren to bo charged against their 
wages, 33w.., 34)«. 

Jetl'orson, Th. , the paper money of the 
American revolution, Ki. 

Johnson, Dr., eggs and pence in the 
Highlands, 17. 

Johnston, Prof., N'otesonNorlh Amer- 
ica, 92//. 

Jones. Richard, Poiiticnl Economy, 43, 
125«., 208, 211«., 313«., 215, 217. 

Justices of tl;e peace (England), em- 
powered to fix the rates of wages, 
306 ; must be landed proprietors, 366. 

Kane. Dr., Industrial Resources of 

Ireland, 43, 79, 80. 
Kennedy, John, manuiacturing im- 

piovemcnts stimulated by industrial 

distresses, 257. 
Kennedy, J. U., strikes in Belgium, 

395. 

Labor, often performed by the person 
who sn])|)lies cajiital in production, 
8 ; mobility of labor essential to confi- 
petition, 163 ; can labor be accumu- 
lated and saved V 292-4. 

Labor, co.stof, real distinguished from 
nominal, 40 ; efficiency of, causes of 
differences in the, chap. iii. ; in con- 
nection with natural agents deter- 
mines the amount that can be paid 
in wagi's, 131. 

Labor-power, its duration an element 
in determining wages, 33, 41 3 ; cost 
of rearing children to age to labor, 
33, 34. 



INDEX. 



433 



Labor question, not identical with the 
wages question, 33lj. 

Laborers, the several classes of, 9 ; the 
statiit? of, 3 15, :!*.)3. 

Laing, Si'uncl, Not.en of a TravMer^ 
71 ; J)i:iiiii.:irk d ,d the Buchlex, 3J9; 
Tour ill iSiuedoH, olO. 

Lai.ssen Fnire,, a i^ractical rule, not a 
principle of universal application, 
11)2, ICiv ;,,;,p1 ,■ I to truck, aiO; to 
fcictory I ';;-s:.-ii.:i.;i, ;;.')7-9 ; to strikes 
and tra Ij.i nuiuus, :iS5, ;js(;. 

Lamport, Caarles,'e(lect of unsanitary 
conditions upon life and laboring 
powjr, 65«,. 

L md, tsnurd of, in different countries, 
2 ;7-l:l 

Lsveleye, E. de., the orthodox political 
ecimomv, 155. 

Lecky, ITiMory of Rationalism in Eu- 
rope, 29;*.,' 405"-. 

L^g;il profession, duration of life in, 

y?. 

Legislation in aid of labor, 168-73, 
:j56-(i;3 ; iu restraint of labor, 303-9. 

Lsighton, Sir B., concession of Cow- 
land, 24. 

Leslie, T. E. Cliffe, Land Sijstem.s of 
Ireland and the Continent, 213«. 

Livi, L3on3, estimatsd number of 
working da.ys in the year, 31. 

Liquors, consumption of, in Great 
Britain, 349, 350. 

Lock-outs affecting the regularity of 
employment, 30. 

Locock, Mr., food of the laboring pop- 
ulation of the Netherlands, 5iJ/<.; 
strikes, 395. 

Longe, F. D., Refutation of the Wage 
Fand. etc., 132;/.. 

Lytton, Mr., cooperation in Austria, 
2iJ5 ; the corporation system, 310. 

Macadam, Dr. S., analyses of drink- 
ing water, 65. 

Manilla V, T. B., HiHlory of Enxjland, 
309, 370. 

Mac j.lonia, its winter population aug- 
mented b/ immigration, 167^1. 

Maho:i, Lord, Jlintory of England, 
41. 

Majhinery, waste of, with ignorant 
labor, 67; disturbances introduced 
by macliinery into labor, 17'8, 189. 

Ma1ct, Mr., factory legislation in 
Prance, 361. 

Malthusianism, chap. vi. , cf. p. 357. 

Manchester Snhool of Political Econ- 
omy, 161, 162, 336. 

"Manchester Unity," the, its financial 
condition, 400. 

Mansfield, Lord, the incidence of taxa- 
tion, 316". 

Mavtineau, H., Tlistori/ of England, 
30, 176«., 333. 



Marriage, procrastination of, 354, 3.55; 
st.it:stic.5 of age at marriage, 356; 
effjct.'j of recent social causes in 
dimJnisliing marriage, 381. 

Massachusetts Colony, industrial legis- 
lation of, 305, 3i.6, 3:37'. 

M.iufiee (and Tallon), Lir/Mation sur 
le Travail dc!^ Enfanta, 381. 

McCulloch, J. R. I'olUiad Eronoiny 

ll>.-,, 10',);, ., fjj/, ,, 1:_M,/.; (Joilljiu'r- 

vhd jti,'ii,,ji:inj, ;;,"",()//.. 
MclJounjll, .Survey of Folitlcal 

Econ.oniy, 282. 
Mi»dicr.l profession, duration of life in 

the, 37 . 
Metayer tenancy, 211, 212. 
Mill, James, Ptilitical Economy, 144«. 

Mill, John Stuart, Polltlcid Ecoti.oniy 
(Little & Brown, 1818), the allot- 
ment system, .25/^.; influence of the 
imagination in economics, 77;t.; the 
degradation of the Englis'.i laboring 
population, 82«., 8.jrt.; "diminish- 
ing returns" in agTiculture, 'M'l/i.; 
working-classes as ' consumers of 
manufactured goods, 125" , the 
wage fund doctrine, 143 .; tuo law 
of international values, T9(), 197 ; 
co-oparation, 282 ; the'ofiiee of cus- 
tom, 311, 313, 314 ; small means 
produce no effect in elevating a peo- 
ple, 345». ; effect on wages of the 
ownership of property ]>y the ^vagcs 
class, 3 l-.S ; ^vlplnc■u as ;i.rhis;i,>i>, :;7'.l; 
i^on,: JJusctllrd. (^/irs!J,.„s ,,f r',,IUl- 
cat Econoiny, the eoononiic man, 
174, 175; The Fortni.ghUy Review, 
wage fund doctrine, l.')9, 140. 

Mining, accidents in, to be considered 
in computing the wages paid, 36«.; 
sulphur,inItaly,paymentol: wages,31 . 

Mobility of labor essential to competi- 
tion, 163 ; actual mobility of 1 ibor, 
chap, xi.; intei'ference by law with, 
307-9; (see cliaps. xviii., xix. , ^)«,v- 
sirn); diminished in the case of wo- 
men by physiological causes, and by 
their failure to receive the support 
of public opinion, 377-S. 

Money, the purehase-]v)vver of, affect- 
ing nominal wages, 13. 

Morris, O'Connor, religious differ- 
ences in Ireland, 369;/-. 

Muggeridge, Mr., immobility of Eng- 
lish labor, 185 ; testinumy r.j.spect- 
ing frame-rents, 334, 3;!5. 

MulhoUand, John, comparative cost 
of clothing from cotton and from 
flax, 122/*. : 

Mundella, A. J., superior efficiency of 
North of England laborers, 47. 

Napier and Ettrick, Lord, intellectual 
relations of England and America, 
142w. 



434 



INDEX. 



Nationality, affecting the efficiency of 
labor, 43-(5. 

" Necessary Wages," the doctrine of, 
chip. vii. 

Neison, Dr., statistics of mortality in 
various trades, :{7. 

Netherlands, the food of the laboring 
population of, 5(5 ; habits respectitij; 
dwellings, 118«. ; proportion of for- 
eigners, 184; marriage statistics, 
35(5 ; absence of factory legislation, 
oVi'l ; strikes but little known, oUS ; 
trade clubs, 4(13. 

New England, food habits of the peo- 
ple, 12J, 124. 

Newmrfrch, Wm., factory legislation, 
3.59. 

Newman, F. W., Lectures on PoUiical 
Eco/iotn;/, 15S)i. 

NiehoUs, Sir George, History of the 
Kniidxh Poor Laivs, 321. 

Nominal distinguished from real 
wages, 1 2 ; causes which produce the 
divergence, 13 et seq. 

Nominal distinguished from re.al cost 
of liil)or, 40; causes which produce 
the divergence, 41 et se>2. 

Norniandie, M., report on savings 
banks in Eiu'ope, S.'JO. 

Northcote, Sir Stafford, real distin- 
guished from nominal wiiges, 38, 3'.). 

Norway, marriage statistics, 35G ; 
strikes, S'.Mi. 

Norwegians in the United States, 182. 

Occupation, change of, frequent ne- 
cessity for, 1 78 ; Adam Smith's view, 
192, 193; Prof. Cairnes' view, 103; 
his theory of " Non-Competing 
Groups," 19.5-202 ;chaiige of occupa- 
tion f orn)erly forbidden or restricted 
by law in Enghmd, 306, 397 ; women, 
by 37 Edward III., allowed to inter- 
change trades,379«.. ; access to trades 
restricted by ''union" regXdations, 
493, 404. 

OlUvier, M., the act (France) of May 
2.>, 1864, 3',>4. 

Opinion, p iblic, influential in deter- 
mining wages, 3()2-U9; in determin- 
ing reiits, 3t)9-72. 

Organization of industry conducing 
to efficiency, 67-72. 

Painting, house, irregularity of em- 
ployment in, 28, 32. 

Pakeiiham, Mr., the food of Belgian 
laborers, oG^.. 

Palgrave, Consul, good work not ap- 
preciated in Anatolia, 60;(, 

Pahnor, C. M., the removal of lalwr- 
ers, 316. 

Paper money, cha^ig'JS in circulation 
ali'ecting nominal way;s, 14 ; of tic 
Amoricin Revolution, l;!; lluji-ia- 



tions in paper money placing the 
wages class at a disadvantage, 310-3. 

Parsimony of employers opposed to 
true economy, r)8, .59, 164. 

Payment of wages, variety in form of, 
19; payment-i in kind, 324-7. 

Paupers in England in 1S33 better fed 
than independent laborers, 57; labor- 
ers, once become pjiupers, seldom 
recover tone, 88; English laws of 
pauper settlement, 39!S, 309. 

Peasant proprietorship of land, 5, 9, 
207-9, 243. 

Pennant, Th., Tour in ScotlniuJ. 824. 

Perry, A. L., Politira/ F.eonomij, 138, 
139, 143 ; The Financier, 81, 82, 253. 

Peto, Sir M., testimony respecting 
truck, 329. 

Pet re, Mr., payment of agiicultural 
wages in Prussia, 20;i. ; the practice 
of '■ wandering" in inahnal trades in 
German v, 187 /(. 

Phipps, Mr., married women lint little 
employed in factories in Wiirtem- 
berg, 3S3/». 

Piece-work, how to compute the wages 
of, 13«. 

Pig, permission to keep, 23 ; formerly 
I'.aying the rent in Ireland, 24. 

Political I'jconomy, the ortliodox, 155 ; 
the (I priori school, 175. 

Poor Laws, English, 308, 309 ; effect 
on vi'age labor, 319-22. 

Population, Malthus' law of, chap. vi. 

Porter, G. R., 'J'/ie Proffrexs of the 
.XiUion, 12 ; StutiUieal Journal, 8.50. 

Potato, the, its use as the sole article 
of food, 121-4. 

Poverty the curse of the poor, 166. 

Prices and Wage.s, i:>; differences in 
local prices introduce great complex- 
ity into computations of wages, 17. 

Production furnish -s the measure of 
wages, chap, viii.; continuity of, 
the employer's interest in, 298, 299. 

Profits, certain classes of laborers paid 
from profits, not from revenue, 9 ; 
profits, the object in giving employ- 
ment, 128-30, 291; tlie expectation 
of profits the tost of wage labur, "MO-, 
the term nia<le by some economists 
to include the wages of supervision 
and management, 10 ; in this treatise 
it signifies the gains of the employer, 
aside from the returns of capital, 230 ; 
are excessive profits restored to 
wages y 237-9 ; are profits at the 
minimnra '? 252-61 ; rates of profit, 

2i;8. 

"Protective" Tariffs supported by ar- 
guments which confound wages 
and the cost of labor, 41. 

Prussia, relative expenditure of differ- 
ent cla^s'js for food, clothing, et3., 
117//.; factory legislation, SiiO, 3lil ; 



INDEX. 



435 



■women in agriculture, 380m. ; strikes, 
'A{)'y)i.\ trades unions and friendly 
societies, 402. 
Purdy, Pieit'k, payment of wages in 
Wales, 2U//.; in England, 21m.; har- 
vest wages in Ireland, 20;^ ; irregu- 
larity of agricultural wages, 277*.; 
Siiljstitution of corn-meal for • the 
pot.-ito in Ireland, 130m.; dilference 
in local agricultural wages, 1K(J«. ; 
division of the annual product of land 
in England, 20U/<.: cider and beer 
payments in English agriculture, 
827 ; women in agriculture, 380/i. 

Quarrying, irregularity of employment 

in, 28. 
Quetelet, A., statistics of height and 

weight, 50, 51. 

Real, distinguished from nominal 
wages, 12. 

Real, distinguished from nominal cost 
of labor, 40. 

Rent, in part payment of wages, 21 : 
Ricar;lo's theorj' of rent, 2)^4, 225 ; 
the term only used in this treatise 
of sums paid lor land actually leased, 
225, 221) ; rates of rent influenced 
greatly by public opinion, 307-72 ; 
rental of machines, 332-5 

Repoi-t (House of Commons), Employ- 
ment of women and childien in agri- 
culture, 20''., 22. 24. 47, 52, 53, 72, 
17G«.; 201,202,382//;; Friendly So- 
cietie-i (1874), 403; Railway laborers 
(184i;), 170, 32:» ; Poor Law Com- 
mis-sioners '(1831), 3:.2«.; (1832), 
322//,.; (1833), 57, Hm.: (1842), 34. 37, 
02, 04, 85 ; stoppage of wages, 1807 ; 
Payment of Wages Bill (1854), 21m.; 
2"J5//.. 2.50//., 3211 ; to Local Govern- 
ment Board (1873), 52, 09, 378ft. 

Respect and sympathy for labor, influ- 
ential in determining wages, 302-72 ; 
wanting in the case of women as la- 
borers, 383, 384. 

Retail trade, failure of competition 
in, 311-5. 

Returns of capital, the term how used 
in this treatifie, 225, 231, 232. 

Revenue, certain classes of laborers 
paid from the revenue of their em- 
ployer, and not from profits, 9. 

Ricardo, David, his theory of rent, 
2iAn. ; definition of the banking func- 
tion, 228. 

Richird IL (England), industrial 
legislation of his reign, 305, 307 ; 
insurrection of the serfs, 390. 

Rickards, Prof., the doctrine of Mal- 
tlius, 195. 

Riesbach, Baron, habits respecting 
dress of North and South GcrmEHii, 
117. 



Rogers, J. E. Thorold, Political Econ- 
omy. 06 ; increased productiveness 
of English agriculture, !J3/t. ; cheap 
food undesirable, 121 ; ed'ects of 
fashion on manufacturing industry, 
179/<. ; popular tenure of the soil, 
211m. ; profits — interest, 231m., 233 ; 
co-operation defined, 207w. ; the 
English law of jtauper settlement, 
308 ; comi)etition in retail trade, 315; 
frugality of Cumberland and West- 
moreland peasantry, 347 ; rents in 
England, 368 ; the condition of the 
Irish peasantry before the famine, 
370m. ; llbilory of Agriridturc and 
Prict-n la England^ freedom of labor 
movement, 13th to 15th century, 
1S7m. ; peasantry divorced from the 
soil, 222, 223 ; industrial legislation 
following the Black Death, 3i 4 ; wo- 
men in trade.?, 379 ; the servile insur- 
rection, 390; (Johdc'it and Political 
Opinion, the incidence of taxation, 
310; rents in England influenced by 
public opinion, 307; ^otes to Adam 
Hmitfi's Wealth of Nations, 317. 

Rose, Edvvin, superiority of EngHsh 
labor, 43. 08. 

Rumford, Count, Essays, 166m.. 

Russia, holidays in, ;.9 ; inefficiency 
of lalsor, 43 ; irregularity in factory 
attendance, 48m. ; feebleness of the 
industrial desires of 'the peasantry, 
127m. ; mobility of the laboring 
population, 18U ; peasant proprietor- 
ship increasing, 209 ; savings banks 
statistics, 350m. ; absence of factory 
legislation, 302 ; value of serfs 
before emancipation. 373 ; women 
in agricultur ■, 379//. ; strikes, 396 ; 
" artels," 403. 

Ryot tenancy, 9, 212. 

Salary or stipend class, not wage- 
laboreis, 21.5, 247, 296//.. 

Sanitary Commission of the U. S., 
t^latiUical Memoirs, 51. 

Savings banks statistics, 347, 349, 
350. 

Say, J. B., 160, 167m. 

Scotland, payment of agricultural 
wages in, 20; efficiency of lalwr, 47; 
statistics of height, 50 ; former 
indolence of the poijulation, 76 ; 
food habits of the people, 118, 
120m. ; speech differences among the 
population affecting the mobility 
of labor, 175h,. ; proportion of bread- 
winners to dei endents, 191 ; tenure 
of laud, 208 ; marriage statistics, 356, 
381m. ; women in agriculture, 381m. 

Scott, H. B. M. Consul, expenditures 
of different classes in Wiirtemburg, 
118/i. ; women in manufacturing 
industry, 383m. 



INDEX. 



Ss(Jgvvick, T., Political Economy^ 5. 

Senior, Nassau W., Political ErouoiHij, 
4, 9/4., 4-3, 97, 104, 124;i., D^n., 1S4, 
18 1, 3y8«.., 2.39«. 3J6/1. ; Lcctiiroion 
W'ageti, 25, 2G; Foreign Poor Lawn, 

Settlement, English law of pauper, 

;jc8. 

Sexual restraint, influenc3 on wages, 
354-(). 

Shat'tesbuvy, Earl of, laborers' cot- 
tages, 2;J. 

Shares, laborers hired on, not properly 
wage-laborars, .'il4. 

Sickness, loss of time hy, an element 
in determining real wages, 28; 
statisbic-j of, (Jj; friendly sjcieties 
insuring against, 3^)9, 4U2. 

Simon, Jules, U Onvrierc, oSOw. 

Sismondi, land the true savings bank, 
34'S ; public opinio.i intluencing 
rents in Italy, 3i>S. 

Slavery, the master's interest not 
preventing abuse or neglect, ry.l. 

Slave labor, al^vays inelfective, TiJ, 74. 

"Sliding S.-ale," in wagoi, 270, 
271. 

Smith, Adam, Wealth of Xatiom 
(Rogers' edition), iiiHlI'estive.iess of 
slave labor, 7o; wage; the encour- 
agement of industry', SO ; habits of 
various nations respeat.ng clothing, 
V2-in. ; jHoport-on of br^jad- winners 
to depi nd iits, 125«. ; t.ie immobility 
of labor, 18') ; changes of occ ipation, 
192 ; the salary or stipend class, ^I'l, 
21 <i; the ordinary ratj of pro it, 
36S/t. ; combination of masters to 
lower wages, 3'i>o. 

Smith, Angus, carbonic acid gas in 
mines, 37. 

Smith, E. Peshine, Political Econouiy, 
58, 141. 

Smith, George, excessive labor of 
chU Iren in brickyards, 52. 

Social Science Ti'ans.ictions, 1S'J4, 386 ; 
LS6"), 37, 4S; 18:;6, 23, (il ; 18(i7, 55, 
t)5, 122m. ; ISSS, 47; 186.5, 38, 39; 
1870,52,05; 1871, 274, 321; 1872, 
21, 142rt., r:85; 187i, 202. 

Southern States (U. S.), payment of 
agricultural wages in, 20. 

Spain, higgling in retail trade, 315» ; 
ab-;ence of factory legislation, 
303. 

Spencer, Herbert, Principles of Hiol- 
ofj!/, 259«. 

Spender, Edward, cider truck in Eng- 
.land, 327. 

Spinsters, proportional number in 
England and Scotland, 3S1;/. 

Spitaltields, the condition of the pop- 
ulation, 85 

Stanhope, Edward, laborers' cott.iges, 
22u. 



Statistical Journal, xii., 850; xx. 
184; xxii.,350; xxiii., 375; xxiv.. 
2(1, 21, 30,- 178, 18{J/A, 187 , 327, 
35'.); XXV., 26m., 33«. ; xxvi. 122?i. ; 
xxvii., 33rt., 327; xxviii., 48, 72, 
178, 185, 2.57, 35-.! ; xxx., 38S. 

" Statute ot laborers," 305, 392. 

St;achey, Mr.,iiermans easily adapting 
themselves to the ways of other 
peoples, 187«. ; cooperation in Uen- 
mar.i, 287, 289 ; restrictions on in- 
dustry removed in Denmark, 309; 
strikes, 395 ; trade clubs, 40i. 

Strikes, loss of time by, 30 ; dura- 
tion of, 31 ; cooperation would abol- 
ish, 2il ; when strikes may be re- 
garded as unsuccessful, 298//.; strikes 
against the labor of women, 378«. ; 
the possible utility of strikss often 
decided against, on grounds of the 
wage fund, 385, 3S() ; on the 
ground that they always fail, 388, 
is this conclusive ? 389 ; stiikes are 
the insjrrestions of labor; may be 
justitied by ultimate results, 390-392 ; 
legislation against strikes in Eug- 
liind, 392 ; in Europe, 3i)5, 395. 

Stuart, Consul, holidays in the Eastern 
church, 29«. ; lack of machinery, 
in E])irus, 67. 

SubsiSteuue, tends to increase more 
slovvl,' tli.m poj)ulat!on, iOi-5; the 
condition ijrecedent of production, 
132, 13 J. 

Sweden, duration of the labormg 
power in, 34, 35 ; marriage statistics 
o.5(), factory legislation, 352. 

Swele.5 in the United States, 
182. 

Switzerland, efficiency of labor in, 
45//. ; industrial desires of the peas- 
antry, 127;t. ; character of the em- 
ploying class 259, 200 ; cooperation, 
274, 2t)2 ; savings banks statistics, 
350 ; division of lanled property 
351, factory legislation, 361. 

Sykes, Col., the dwellings of Lanca- 
shire, 51. 

Sympathy, public, influential in de- 
termining wages, 352-9 ; in deter- 
mining rents, 369-72 ; wanting in 
the case of women as laborers, 383, 
384. 

Tallon and Maurice, Legislation sur le 

rravail dcs Enjants, 351. 
Taylor, H. B. J\I. Consul, Eastern mar- 

rjag3 customs, 116. 
Taylor, W. C, married women in 

factories in England, 38o)t. 
Taxation, under perfect competition, 

is dilfused equitably, 160; under im- 

perfejt competition the wages class 

may be put at disadvantage by its 

incidence, 315-18. 



INDEX. 



427 



Thompson, Mr., superiority of Engiisii 
labor, 09. 

Thompson, J., Perronet, food habits 
of tlie Irish and the English, 118/*. 

Thornton, Over-P<ip>(I<itiiiu^ :2oit. ; 
Oh Labor, 50'/i, 271);^ 2V)o-5. 

Tory Party, of England, inflnence in 
favor of early marriages, o56«. 

Trades Uiiions, not to be condemned 
simply because they are restrictive, 
172; their economical nature, ii'M ; 
as friendly societies, 899. 

Truck-payments make it difficult to 
compute real wages, 2J ; truck de- 
fined and describe:], o2 4-7 ; Englisli 
legislation respecting, y27 ; reasons 
for truck, 328, o29 ; prolits of, 13J, 
331 ; abuses of, 331, 332 ; econonaical 
nature of, 335-3i4; controlled by 
public opinion, 36r'«. 

TufFiiell, Carliton, inefficient labor not 
wanted at any price, 49h. 

Turkey, holidays in, 2.) ; good work 
not appreciated, 6U«. ; marriage 
customs, 116. 

United States, difficulty of 3oraputing 
real wages, 19 ; payment of agricul- 
tural wages, 20 ; agricultural wages 
prior to 1850, paid' largely in kind, 
21 ; duration of the laboring power, 
34, 35 ; statistics of height and 
weight, 51 ; food habits of the peo- 
ple, 123, 121; ratio of breadwinners 
to dependents, 12(j«. ; wages paid 
directly out of the product of laljor, 
135, l:!6 ; prevalence of the wage 
fund doctrine explained, 140-42 ; in- 
crease in the number of laborers 
bringing increase of wages, 149 ; 
Chinese in the United States, 17(1 ; 
mobility of the laboring population, 
ISO, 181 ; foreigners in the United 
States, 181, 182 ; tenure of the land, 
227.; cooperation, 228; great ex- 
tension of retail trading 1860-70, 
313; savings banks statistics, 351, 
352 ; early marriages, 355 ; great 
irregularity in the distribution of 
female industries, 375 ; women in 
agriculture, 380w. ; women in manu- 
factures, 382, 3S3. 

Vauban, Marshal, loss of time by holi- 
days, 29. 

Vethake, 'R.^Po'itical Economy^ 141. 

Victoria, industrial legislation of her 
reign, 3li0. 

Villerme, M., statistics of height and 
weight, 50, 51 ; excessive labor of 
children, 167, 168.. 

Wages affected by the exchange of 
distributed for undistributed wealth, 
6, 26j ; made by some economists to 



include the remuneration of five 
classes of laborers, 10 ; nomi- 
nal distinguished from real wages, 
1 J (chap, ii.) ; distinguished from 
cost of labor, 40; measured by the 
jjroduct of industry, chap. viii. ; 
affected by causes which influence 
the efficiency of labor, 145 ; by in- 
ventions and improvements, 14(5, 
147 ; large and sudden rise of, not 
l^romotive of frugality, 235 ; laws 
fi.xing wages, 3U4-6 ; wages of wo- 
men, 372-384. 

Wages-class, chap. xii. ; has either 
the wages or th-3 cmpioying class an 
advantage over the other ? chap, 
xvi. ; how the wages class may be 
put at disadvantage in competition, 
with employers, chap. xvii. ; what 
may help them in competition, chap, 
xviii. ; may any advaiitage be 
given them through strikes or trades 
unions y chap. xix. 

Wage-laborers less industrious than 
those working on their ov/n account, 
75-7 ; less frugal, 271, 272. 

Wage-fund, the doctrine of, chap, 
ix. ; stated, 138-40: its prevalence 
accounted for, 143; refuted, 144-50; 
made use of by some economists to 
settle the question of strikes, 385, 
386. 

Wales, payment of agricultural wages 
20«. 

Welsh in the United States, 182. 

Walker Amasi, Science of Wealth, 
141vi., -31w. 

Walsham, Mr., employment of chil- 
dren in factories in the iSTether- 
lands, 362. 

Ward, J., Workmen and Wages, 
13)1., 389n., 395,398, 402. 

Waste, an element in all work, 48, 60 ; 
encouraged by excessive profits, 257, 
258. 

Watts, John, loss of time by strikes, 
30. 

Water, impurity of, affecting the 
efficiencv of labor, 60, 65. 

Wavland Francis, I'olUical Economy, 
141;i. 

Wells, David A., Ripo)-is on U. S. 
Rerenue, 44w., 45«.. 

Wheeler, Mr., Cotton C altiuation, 
42;;.., 67. 

Whewell, Dr., the econonric man, 175. 

White, J.' E. , steel dust in uet:dle fac- 
tories, 32 ; excessive labor of chil- 
dren in factories, 52, 53, 201, 202. 

Whitworth, Sir Jos. , false economy of 
employing cheap labor, 41 ;i. ; of 
underfeeding, biin. ; discipline an 
element of efficiency, 98n. . 

William IV., industrial legislation of 
his reign, 322, 327, 3.-8, 360. 



428 



INDEX. 



Winthiop, Governor, History of Xcw 
Eu-,]laiul, 241), 24L. 34:i. 

Wolowski, M., restrictions on the 
labor of children, 358/*. 

Women, irregul irity in the employ- 
mwit of, m a/grlcultiir.e, 83 ; work 
'unsuited to tneir sex, 5:.' ; their 
wages inadequate to their service, 
iVi2, o7o; liave especial need to 
move to the labor market, b7.), 376 ; 
but are peculiarly disabljd therein, 
oT(J-8 ; by actual obstruction on the 
part of men, 377, 378 ; by lack of 
j>ublic sympathy and support, 379 ; 
tiieir need to enter the labor market 



comparatively modern, 379-81 ; the 
supposed necessity often not a real 
one, 381 ; loss and waste in the 
family by reason of the absence of 
the wife and daughter, 382, 
383. 

Workhouse test for able-bodied pau- 
pers, 370-4. 

Wiirtemburg, expenditures of different 
classes, 1 1 Hu. ; married women in 
factories, 383/t. 

Young, Arthur, Travds in Ireland, 43, 
7(), 183, 339, 3li8, S69, 380«. ; Travels 
ill France.. 75, 227. 



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